I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,} 

# # 

| ^£e/f ...l..(k.. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



4 



EIGHT DAYS 



WITH THE SPIRITUALISTS: 



OK, 



What led me to the Subject — What I Heard — 
What I Saw — and my Conclusions. 



BY 

JAMES GILLINGHAM, 

Author of " The Seat of the Soul" &c. 



JS? MOB EIGHTFEITCE. 



CHARD: 
T. YOUNG, PRINTER AND BOOKSELLER, FORE STREET, 

LONDON: 

P. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW, 

1872. 



& 



%& 



BIGHT DAYS 



WITH THE SPIRITUALISTS: 



What led me to the Subject — What I Heakd — 
What I Saw — and my Conclusions. 

JAMES GILLINGHAM, 

Author of " The Seat of the Soul," <Stc. 







(PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST J 



" The spirit -world is the soul of the natural universe, and the only source of the life of 
that soul is God. Just as the body of a man not only lives from a man's soul, but is also 
preserved by its connection with the soul, so the existence and preservation of the natural 
world is secured by its connection with, and consequent nearness to, the spiritual world, the 
glorious places of which are Heaven." 

" The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him." 

" Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister ?" 

" Seeing we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses/* 



CHARD: 
T. YOUNG, PRINTER AND BOOKSELLER, FORE STREET. 

LONDON: 

F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

1872. 



fi 



*&1 



EIGHT DAIS WITH THE SPIRITUALISTS. 



Modern spiritualism is a subject which at the present time is 
engaging much of public attention.- Scientific and literary men 
of all classes are inquiring into the matter, in order that they may 
test its truthfulness, or expose it as an imposition. There is 
already a long list of distinguished men (whom we take as authori- 
ties on other momentous questions) convinced that spiritualism in 
itself is a truth, and that there is a force in existence yet unknown 
by the general body of mankind, and that this force does not as 
yet come under any known or recognised law. It is already the 
conviction amongst not a few distinguished men that spiritualism — 
called by some Psychic Force— is noW in its bud and infancy, and 
that when wrested from the hands of impostors, and freed from 
the rubbish in which it is buried, it will in the centuries to come, 
if not in our own time, become one of the grandest and most 
sublime sciences we have. 

Like others anxious for truth on this subject, I have been led 
to investigate the matter, and this every honest man should do 
before he considers himself competent to give an opinion on the 
question. In this pamphlet I shall endeavour to give my 
experience and the results of my short investigation of the matter; 
and I trust this little work will not be without instruction and 
profit to its reader. I shall point out what I think is truth and 
what I think is falsehood, and I will also warn against the dangers 
that Me on the track of this great subject. If you are not already 
acquainted with any of the facts of spiritualism, I feel assured 
that the report I am about to offer will give you such an insight 
as will prepare you for the crisis which must sooner or later come 
upon this question. Before entering fully into the matter, I will 



state first under what circumstances I was led to inquire into it. 
Secondly, the secondary evidence I have gleaned from reliable 
sources. Thirdly, my own experience and investigation of the 
matter. And lastly, my own conclusions on the subject. 

First, then, what led me to investigate spiritualism? In the 
course of my practice as a Surgical Mechanist, I met with a number 
of persons who had suffered the amputation of their limbs, and 
the experience of every person that has lost a limb is that he still 
feels the existence of the limb when the natural member is removed, 
and, notwithstanding that a patient may have lost a limb for fifty 
years, he still feels conscious of the existence of the limb, and that 
it occupies the same space as the natural one did, and is at the 
same distance from the body as before amputated; that is to say, 
if a patient had his shoulder-blade and arm taken away altogether, 
he still feels his arm and hand as he always did when clothed with 
matter; not only so, the hand and arm that he cannot see are more 
sensitive than the member which he can see. Thus to him the 
existence of a spiritual arm is a mental fact. Further, if a man 
with a limb off were to place the end of his stump against an iron 
plate or stone wall, his leg or arm would be felt through the wall 
on the other side, and this must be the case if the soul is imma- 
terial. From a mass of facts connected with other cases, such as 
from blind, deaf, dumb, and paralysed patients, I was led to the 
conclusion that these facts taught a momentous truth — That 
the soul was the man, that the body was the clothing that 
fitted to the shape of the man, and that when a part of the 
material clothing was taken, whether it be leg or arm, the 
spiritual limb was not taken, nor separated, but it remained intact, 
connected to the soul, in spite of any accident that happened 
to the body. There is no feeling in the material limb taken; 
the body cannot feel any more than can the matter of this table 
that I am writing on. What is it, then, that does feel ? Why, 
the spirit. What other conclusion could I come to than that a 
man feels his spiritual limbs after the material ones are amputated, 
simply because the spiritual limbs belong to him, but the material 
ones do not belong to the real man, any more than any other 
matter. Thus the soul which is developed in the body, clothes 
itself as with a garment; that garment, which comes from the 
dust and returns to the dust, is used a vehicle while in this 
natural world, where it exists under natural recognised laws; but 
when the man — the soul — has become developed, the body — the 



capsule — splits and gravitates to the earth — to the dust from 
whence it came, but the soul, stamped and made in the image of 
its Maker, passes into the spirit-world, where it still progresses 
under laws perfectly natural to its new state, but supernatural to 
the world it has left. Thus I infer that the soul of a man has 
the same identity as his body, that the soul fills and builds every 
atom of man's structure, and is not a mere myth, a spot, or 
speck in the heart or brain, which means no soul at all, but that 
the soul is the true spiritual being, the man. I found my infer- 
ences verified by the scriptures, for " there is," says the Apostle, 
* a spiritual body and a natural body," and one is as distinct from 
the other as earth is from heaven. After being satisfied of the 
truth of my inferences (which inferences, I admit, I could not 
have drawn had I not some knowledge of the scriptures), I was 
induced to write the work entitled " The Seat of the Soul and its 
Immortality," which was by many objected to; but still convinced 
of the truth of what I had written (and I wrote for no object but 
truth), I took the objections and answered them in another work 
which is appended to my first, as it is no use for a man to start a 
theory if he cannot stand and defend it when attacked. My little 
book was widely reviewed by the press. By one part it was com- 
mended, by the other I was considered a charlatan, an enthusiast, 
and gone mad. This is what every author must expect when he 
treats of a new subject; still it takes no effect upon me, or I 
should not be now giving another edition. The little work fell 
into the hands of some spiritualists, and it was reviewed in one of 
their organs, The Medium or Day-break, Oct. 7th, 1870, of which 
I quote a paragraph : — " Mr. Gillingham's book, ' The Seat of the 
Soul,' is calculated to bring the matter of spiritualism promi- 
nently before the world, as the author does not ally himself with 
spiritualism as a movement. There is nothing new to the spiri- 
tualists in this book, but it answers many questions and objections 
of a scriptural character which will be of great value to the 
general reader, &c." I was completely startled when I read the 
above, and was perfectly ignorant that I had written a work on 
spiritualism, as my object was alone the immortality of the soul. 
As I knew nothing of spiritualists nor spiritualism, having con- 
sidered them impostors given to witchcraft and trickery, I turned to 
see how they could get hold of the facts I had written about, as 
they said I had written nothing new to them. I accordingly 
ordered, through my bookseller, some of their weekly periodical^ 



and on perusing them was perfectly thunderstruck to find that they 
had worked out the same truth as myself, from an entirely different 
branch of natural science ; and these inferences on the soul 
question, drawn from two opposite branches, were to me two 
witnesses confirming one grand truth. Now I set to work to 
look more deeply into the matter, and read all I could for and 
against the subject, as by seeing both sides of the picture I 
should be more satisfied as to the truth or falsehood of spiritu- 
alism. At the time that the experiments were performed by Mr. 
Crookes, F.R.S., Mr. Huggins, F.R.S., and Mr. Serjeant Cox, with 
a view to test Mr. D. Home's mediumistic powers (a report of 
which appeared in the Science Quarterly Review), the experiments 
were of such a character as to result in the discovery of a new 
force, to which they gave the name of "Psychic Force," and when 
an account of this new force appeared, these scientific men were 
considered to have been humbugged, or that they were labouring 
under delusion, delirium, or some other mental disease for which 
I can find no name. However, on reading the reports, I posted a 
copy of my book, "The Seat of the Soul," to each of these 
gentlemen. Shortly after, I received a letter from Mr. Serjeant 
Cox, from which I give the following extract : — 

1, Sussex Court, Temple, 3rd August, 1871. 
Dear Sir, 

Many thanks for your letter and pamphlet, which I have read 
with great interest. Your views are exactly in accordance with my own on 
the subject of the soul, as pervading the whole body and not lurking in any 
one part, and also as being of the same shape as the body. In fact, my 
opinion is that the soul builds the body and clothes itself with flesh as with 
a garment, and that the cutting off the leg or arm does not cut off a piece of 
the soul. Your observations confirm my theory. 

I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, 

Edwd. Wm. Cox, 

I have published the above part of Mr, Cox's letter to show he 
has worked out the same facts in his psychic experiments as 
myself, and also to show you that those gentlemen who are bent 
upon truth have begun to investigate the matter on a scientific 
basis, and have given it the name of " Psychic Force " until a 
further investigation of the matter is made. While, on the one 
hand, many of the physical manifestations may be the work of the 



meamm, tnere is another point which cannot be explained, that 
is, the getting of an intelligent answer to an intelligent question 
through the medium of the table; as the giving an intelligent 
answer must be an intelligent act — the result of mind — and comes 
from a source independent of and apart from any person forming 
a circle; and such results are constantly being manifested in 
circles where no sitter could be a party to trickery or falsehood. 

After receiving such a letter from Mr. Serjeant Cox, confirma- 
tory of what I had written on the seat of the soul, I became still 
more anxious to investigate this new Psychic Force, which by the 
spiritualists is called spiritualism. 

I have given you what led me to inquiry into the subject. I 
now give you the secondary evidence, which I have gleaned from 
reliable sources. The first to give me information from experience 
after my spirit of inquiry was aroused, was a gentleman, a Con- 
gregational Minister who officiated at Chard. " I went," he says, 
" with my brother, to Mrs. Marshall's seance in London, to test 
the truth of spiritualism. All present were strangers to me and 
my brother. We put questions that are usually put as tests. I 
asked the medium what my father's name was. The reply was, 

L , but he is dead, he died at such an age and date. Now both 

my brother and I were doubtful about the answer; we went to 
the cemetery on our return home, and on the stone that had been 
erected some years we found the age and date correct. ' What is 
the name of my sister-in-law?' Two christian names were given, 
and her correct surname. Neither I nor my brother were aware 
that she had two christian names, as she was always called by 
one. We wrote to Cardiff and inquired of her. She said, ' Though 
only called by one name, I was registered with two christian 
names.' These names were precisely those given by the medium. 
'Now you profess to give spirit messages from the spirit world; 
I should like a message from my mother.' I took my own card 
from my pocket, placed it under the leg of the table, and placed 
a piece of pencil up the hollow of the leg, as requested, and in 
less time than it was possible for human hand to write, I took up 
my card beautifully written all over in my mother's writing ; it 
was in her touching style and words, and she referred to her death 
in child-birth, and to my brother, then at my side, who was 
spared at her death; and she said she had watched over him and 
guarded him in all his growing up. Now who there could have 
known the circumstances of my mother's death ? — No one. Now 



8 

bo perform such feats as these involves an intelligent act ; we were 
told things we did not know, therefore the thoughts could not 
be caught from our own minds and sent back again to us as in 
mesmerism, We went to the meeting sceptics ; we came back 
converts : and who would not ? " 

The next that gave me information on the subject was a 
clergyman from London, w T ho officiated at Chard. These two 
gentlemen being heralds of the truth, I had more faith in their 
statements than I should in ordinary persons. He informed me 
" that there was certainly some truth in the matter, though, like 
all other profound subjects, for the present it was enveloped in 
deep mystery. This I know, I have a lady and gentleman, near 
friends of mine, and members of my congregation. They had 
lost a beloved child, and sat, as spiritualists, at the table for 
manifestations. A piece of pencil and a sheet of paper were laid 
on the table. Wishing for communion with their departed one, 
they sat for some time, and many times without success; but one 
evening, as they were sitting, a power was manifested : the pencil 
was taken up by an unseen hand, and it glided rapidly over the 
paper. When one piece was full, another and another were placed 
on the table in succession, until there were several feet worked 
off. On examining the sheets they were drawn all over with 
beautiful flowers. These flowers have been shown to several 
eminent botanists, and they are unknown. I have seen the 
sheets." To draw a flower must be an intelligent act ! 

The next gentleman I met with was a powerful medium, who 
called at my house with a patient. By coming in contact with 
him I felt that I had got at the very door of spiritualism; and 
was anxious for his experience as a medium. He informed me 
that he had given it up for two years, as he found that it affected 
his health. " Does it injure in every case ?" " No ; but when a 
strong man sits in a circle with weak men, the weak draw strength 
from the strong, consequently the weak benefit on what the 
strong loses. Not only so, if any diseased person sits in the 
circle, there is a tendency in the whole circle to be infused with 
the affection. I only practised as a medium in my home circle, 
and with friends — in fact, all my family are mediums. I have a 
little girl who is more powerful than myself. She will set the 
table going in a short time by herself; in fact, there was a time 
when we had not a table or chair in the house without legs 
broken. I also know a lady whose mediumistic emanations were 



so strong that though a table was hung with weights so that five 
men could not lift it, yet under her influence it bounded over the 
room as if it were as light as a feather. Further, she once made 
a counter rise from the floor, and, being nailed, it wrenched up 
the boards of the floor to which it was secured. She, also, has 
given up the practice, as the drawing away so much vital energy 
and force from the body has materially affected her health." 
"Now you have said something of physical manifestations, I 
should like some of the intellectual ones, so that I may be satis- 
fied that it is the work of invisible, intelligent, thinking agents." 
"Well, in my family we communicated through the alphabet. 
It mattered not how far I was from home, they could always tell 
where I was, what I had been doing, who I had seen, and the 
very moment of my return, and this as correctly as if they had 
witnessed it upon the spot when hundreds of miles from home." 
" These are the actions of the living; now tell me if you really get 
communications from the departed." " I will give you one fact 
which will suffice : — ' Shortly after my taking up spiritualism, I 
requested to communicate with my little girl who had been dead 
some years. The controlling spirit at the table fetched her and 
brought her to me ; she gave the signs of her presence. I called 
her by name, and said, ' My dear, if you are my child, give me 
some circumstance that occurred in your life-time, whereby I 
may know you are mine.' She gave the following : — ' Once, on a 
journey on a hot day, I was thirsty; you called at a house by the 
way and asked for water. The old lady had no water, but she 
had some cold tea in the pot, if I would like it; and I drank out 
of it.' ' Quite true/ I replied ; for when only part of the answer 
was given, I remembered the circumstance, and caught the rest. 
The thought struck me whether any evil spirit was personifying 
my mind, so I put another question for further proof, when she 
sent back the same answer vies versa, as much as to say, ' I am 
not personifying your mind, and I am your child.' I give you 
another instance of spirit intelligence : — ' A stranger came into 
our town ; I let him have fifty pounds worth of goods. On my 
return from delivering the goods, the family had just given over 
their sitting. My sister, who was a powerful medium, said 
' There is a direct message for you.' 'What is it?' ' That man 
whom you have supplied with the goods is a rogue, and he is going 
to cheat you.' Well, I had as much faith in spiritualism as this, 
that I went again and demanded my goods, (which I had no right 



10 

to do), and would not go until I had them. In less than ten 
days this fellow went in and cheated my neighbours out of one 
hundred and ten pounds.' " 

After this, I met with another gentleman who knew a great deal 
on the question. I asked for one proof to be given that I could 
feel would be tangible, because I did not want humbug nor suppo- 
sition, I wanted truth and proof. " Well, I will give you a proof 
of spirit communication. A friend I know — a widow — called on 
Mrs. Marshall when she paid a visit to Clifton. She said to Mrs. 
Marshall ' Can you bring me a proof that my husband is still in 
existence ? ' ' Yes ' was the reply, ' and we will call for him; he is 
now present. What test would you like to put ? ' ' I should like 
to test his hand-writing by his writing his name; I should know 
him as well by that as by any test I could put.' The name was 
struck off by the pen of the medium in an instant, and on looking 
at it she said \ I am satisfied that is my husband's writing, I will 
swear to it.' Other signatures are now brought, written in his 
life-time, and they are the fac-simile of each other." Now you 
must admit that it would be a matter impossible to copy a man's 
signature by a single dash of the pen in this way, and it could 
have been none other than the hand of her departed husband which 
could have executed it correctly. 

The same gentleman said he was a personal friend of Mr. Home, 
and that Mr. Home placed himself, in the presence of two friends 
of his, under spirit control. He went to the fire, undid his neck- 
tie, made a few passes over his face, and, placing his hand in the 
blazing fire, took out a large live coal and held it in his hand. 
He said to his friend near, " Can you take it ? If you have faith 
you can." " Yes," was the reply. It was then passed into the 
hand of my friend, and he held it. To which Mr. Home replied, 
"Thou hast prayed well, John." Neither of their hands were 
scorched, neither had they the smell of fire. It is remarkable 
that all the natural laws that we recognise seem to be suspended 
under spirit influence: and I remarked it reminded me of the 
three Hetrew children in the fiery furnace, who were not scorched 
nor had the smell of fire. The analogy which some of the facts 
of scripture bear to the facts of spiritualism is most extraordinary; 
this I have given in the conclusions of this pamphlet. 

Evidence that spiritualism deserves investigation. — The 
Spiritualist, Sept. 15, 1871. — The testimony of reliable and re- 
spectable witnesses that the phenomena of spiritualism are actual 



11 

facts, and not imposture or delusion, nas of late years so accumu- 
lated as to possess very great weight. In the case of Lyon v. 
Home, Mr. Kobert Chambers, Mr. C. F. Varley, Dr. Gully, 
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and others, all made affidavits strongly 
in favour of Mr. Home. The following is a portion of the 
affidavit of Mr. C. F. Varley, C.E., F.R.G.S., M.R.I.:— 

" I have been a student of electricity, chemistry, and natural philosophy 
'for twenty-six years, and a telegraphic engineer by profession for twenty-one 
years, and I am the consulting electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, 
and of the Electric and International Company. 

" About eight years ago, I called on Mr. Home, the defendant in this suit, 
and stated that I had not yet witnessed any of the physical phenomena, but 
that I was a scientific man and wished to investigate them carefully. 

" He immediately gave me every facility for the purpose, and desired me to 
satisfy myself in every possible way, and I have been with him on divers 
occasions when the phenomena have occurred. I have examined and tested 
them with him and with others, under conditions of my own choice, under a 
bright light, and have made the most jealous and searching scrutiny. I have 
been, since then, for seven months in America, where the subject attracts 
great attention and study, and where it is cultivated by some of the ablest 
men, and having experimented with and compared the forces with electricity 
and magnetism, and after having applied mechanical and mental tests, I 
entertain no doubt whatever that the manifestations which I have myself ex- 
amined were not due to the operation of any of the recognised physical laws 
of nature, and that there has been present on the occasions above-mentioned 
some intelligence other than that of the medium and observers." 

I could give you a large amount of secondary evidence, but that 
which I have given must suffice. Now becoming still more 
anxious, as I had been led step by step to inquire into the 
matter, I resolved to investigate for myself; thus I now bring 
you to the third part of my subject — my own experience : — 

On Monday, the 18th of September, 1871, I left home for 
London, that I might investigate for myself the science of spiritual- 
ism. On my arrival I found waiting for me a letter from a 
gentleman who occupies a prominent position in the literary world; 
he appointed to meet me at a seance. On my way to 15, South- 
ampton Row, Holborn, where the seance was to be held, I met an 
old school-fellow who accompanied me. This is a public seance 
and held two or three times a week, and open to any one who 
likes to investigate the matter. The fee of entry is generally one 
shilling, sometimes half-a-crown. The seance is held in a room 
on the first floor, the room being furnished just as an ordinary 
sitting-room would be. Soon the gentleman I had to meet by 



12 

appointment came, and brought a large bunch of flowers with him. 
" I have brought them " he said " to see what is done with them, 
as we witness remarkable things sometimes." There was a some- 
what large party present, a larger number than usual, most of 
whom were strangers to the phenomena. Soon Messrs. Heme 
and Williams, of Lamb's Conduit Street, came, who were the two 
controlling mediums. We were arranged around a long dining 
table which took up nearly the whole length of the room, the two 
mediums sitting one at each end. The flowers brought were placed 
up behind a picture at the back of Mr. Heme. Some paper cones 
or tubes were placed upon the table, through which the controlling 
spirits were said to communicate with the sitters in an audible 
voice. The lights, when all were seated, were put out, and we all 
united hands around the table so as to form a perfect circle. I 
sat near the medium, Mr. Williams, and my friend next. The 
influence did not operate as quickly as usual. I was asked to 
change my seat with another, when the influence soon began. 
Whether it was the work of the devil, the work of the mediums, 
or the work of departed spirits, I am not prepared to say, but you 
will have the facts. As all hands are united, it is to be supposed 
there was no room for trickery. The tubes on the table are taken 
up and heard to fall on the table ; the flowers are now beginning 
to rustle up behind the picture, they are taken down by Kate, the 
controlling spirit, and pushed up into Mr. Heme's face, and there 
seemed to be quite a contest between him and Kate. Now John 
King comes, another controlling spirit, and shouts out through 
one of the paper trumpets in a boisterous voice, " good evening, 
gentlemen, there is a great deal of contrary influence here to 
night. Charity, charity, charity ! " A chair from some part of the 
room was pitched over our heads into the centre of the table; next 
the music stool was pitched over our heads on the table in like 
manner; another chair was swung up to the ceiling and came down 
with a crash; then the easy chair was taken by Kate, put up on 
the side-board, and turned down on Mr. Heme's,shoulders. Now 
a light was struck, and the things were to be seen upon the table 
as brought by some power. We were again put into the dark, the 
table became convulsed with rappings and rockings, the cover of 
the piano which stood in one corner of the room and was said to 
be locked is wrenched open, and the strumming of the piano 
begins, one string flies, and the cover is let down with a crash. 
Mr. Heme held the flowers as placed in his hand; I made a mental 



13 

request to myself that Kate should bring them to me, when the 
flowers came at once, and were placed in my lap from the opposite 
end of the table. John King is keeping up his conversation with 
the company. " Well " I said, " John, I have had a manifestation 
from Kate, I should now like one from you;" then John came and 
gave me three cracks on the head with the tube. I then requested 
that Kate should take the flowers and pass them to my Chard 
friend on the opposite side of the table, but my request was not 
responded to; I asked John King the reason, he said "your 
magnetism is too strong for her." " John, tell me what I have 
got in my side pocket." I had there a book of photographs of an 
invalid couch which I had come to London to patent. In reply 
to my question John said " he did not know." " Why, John ?" 
"because I can't see." Now the chairs, hats, sticks, etc., etc., 
began to pour upon the table, after which John King said " good 
night." My friend said, "Don't go yet, John," to which John said, 
" Ah, Edward, there is a great deal of cross-examination here to 
night." This, the first seance in my experience, then broke up. 
Well, I left far from satisfied. I went to get truth, and I felt 
I had got husk, and I felt that such a round of manifestations 
was not profitable, nor by any means instructive, and that if the 
spirits of the departed have no nobler work to occupy their time 
about, it is frivolous and empty. If it is the work of spirits at 
all, they must belong to the inferior order. I left with the 
impression that it was the work, to a certain extent, of the 
mediums, and that we had all been humbugged. I do not say it 
was really so ; but in penning this pamphlet, I shall give my 
honest conviction, whether that conviction is right or wrong. I 
examined the tubes after the seance, and spoke through them with 
another; though the voice of the gentleman who spoke through 
one tube — his natural voice — was different to mine, it was sur- 
prising how the two voices were modified into one voice when 
speaking through the tube. Whether the mediums threw their 
voices through the tubes, I cannot say, but the voices generally 
came in the direction of the mediums. 

My second seance was on Wednesday night, at the same place. 
The meeting was controlled by two French lady mediums. There 
were also present my friend from Chard, two gentlemen from 
Leeds, Miss Fowler, a trance medium who had just arrived from 
America, a gentleman from Sicily who acted as interpreter, and 
myself. This seance was held in the light. A conversation took 



14 

place through the French ladies' mediumship and by means of the 
alphabet, and was kept up with the spirits of the departed. After 
sitting a short time, the medium asked if there were any spirits 
present ; when three audible knocks were given, from some 
invisible source, on the table, in the affirmative. Several questions 
were asked in this way, and responded to. Miss Fowler said to 
the controlling spirit, "Can you saw?" And instantly was heard 
the saw going under the table. " We should like to hear the logs 
fall." You could hear when the saw was coming through, and 
the logs fall as they were cut off. "Now give us your name." 
Three knocks — " yes." The alphabet is now taken out in needle- 
work, and a pointed rod is pointed to the letters of the alphabet 
by the medium, repeating the alphabet orally — A, B, C,— when 
she came to C, a knock comes on the table. Began again — 
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, 0,— when she comes to 
0, another knock comes. Begins again until she comes to R, — 
another knock comes. Begins again until she comes to D, — an- 
other knock comes. In like manner the alphabet is begun each 
time, until I and are spelt out. The name given is Cobdick. 
" This is a spirit," said a gentleman, " that is generally present 
when I sit at a seance'' An intelligent correspondence is now 
carried on in this way; and every word is spelt out as I have 
described, by the means of the alphabet. Though it may appear 
a rather tedious process, still that is lost sight of in the anxiety 
felt to get the message. Now I would remark that here is a point 
I cannot get over. It is this :— thousands of Christian poeple have 
such private seances in their own families, and they carry on an 
intelligent correspondence in this way. It may seem ridiculous 
to talk to a table, and to get intelligent answers to intelligent 
questions through the table; but it is so. Now, taking another 
view of the question, I cannot suppose that all who practice 
spiritualism are knaves, fools, and impostors: but there are those 
who practise it on whom we can rely. To get an intelligent 
answer to an intelligent question must be an intelligent act; and 
mark, intelligence is the result of mind and spirit, and is not 
magnetism nor electricity, though magnetism and electricity may 
be the medium through which the intelligence comes. But to turn 
to the seance: on the whole, this seance was not a fair test, 
because not of a satisfactory character, arising from French and 
English questions being crossed ; probably some of the spirits 
present did not know French. However, I put one question, and 



15 

it was my impression that if the question were put, I should know 
what kind of answer to expect ; thus the answer being upon my mind, 
would be transferred to the mind of the medium, as in mesmerism, 
and thus given back to me again through the alphabet; but instead 
of getting the answer I expected, I got an entirely different one to 
what I was thinking of, thus getting an answer quite the reverse ; 
it at once disproved my opinion as to the transfer of thought. The 
seance having come to a close, I then had a short chat with Miss 
Fowler, the trance medium, who had just arrived from America. I 
noticed, while she was sitting, a twitching of her fingers, and that she 
caught them from the table quickly several times, and rubbed them 
as if scalded. I inquired the reason. She said the influence was 
taking possession of her, and that if she had not removed her hands 
she would have gone off in a trance. "Do you know what you are 
doing when in a trance ?" " No ; the spirit controlling answers 
the questions and gives the predictions, which are always truth- 
ful." " How do you feel under a trance ?" " My eyes are fixed 
and turned up, and my brain seems to me to be pressed from 
my forehead back into my head. I predicted the Stowmarket 
explosion : that saved 800 lives. If you were to write any com- 
munication and place it on my forehead when in a trance, with 
the writing turned inwards, I could tell you what it was instantly; 
but when I came out of my trance I should be unconscious of any 
statement I had made. I know a medium who, if you were to 
take a letter before her closed, would write you its very contents, 
letter for letter, without seeing it or breaking the seal ; or if you 
took any letter from the post-office, the contents of which it 
would be impossible for either to know, she would give every 
sentence correctly on a sheet of paper. You may then open the 
letter, and you will find the two letters to correspond. I know 
another medium, a gentleman, who, if you put a question, will 
give you a correct answer. His sleeve is drawn above his elbow> 
and the arm laid bare ; as soon as the question is asked, the 
message or answer will rise on his arm from under the skin in 
letters of blood." 

It is. now past ten at night; but, still full of the subject, I take 
a ramble with the two gentlemen from Leeds. One of them is a 
spiritualist and a medium, who came to town to investigate like 
myself; but he said he got more satisfactory results at his own 
private seance at home than in town. This gentleman is well 
known in Leeds, and I can vouch for the honesty of his state- 



16 

ments. "I used/' he said, "to pooh, pooh, at Spiritualism. 
Eight months ago I was induced to practice it ; we sat several 
nights a week after the general work of the day was over. My 
wife, myself, an eminent physician, and a gentleman of equal 
standing, sat round the table in the usual way, with our hands on 
it. My father is dead, my brother is dead, and a friend whom I 
loved as a brother is dead also. They come to us as soon as we 
call them and communicate through the alphabet ; we converse 
with them as I converse to you. My brother, when he comes, is 
the strongest, and he gives some tremendous lifts of the table. 
We ask what we are to do. Sometimes he tell us, through the 
alphabet, to begin by prayer, or by singing ' Shall we gather at 
the river/ thereby to get up a unity of feeling, and he generally 
asks us to read the 14th chapter of Luke, about the rising of 
Lazarus, after which we get sound instruction, and the best of 
advice as to our proceedings in life. We keep our seances private, 
as we have our convictions of the matter, and we do not want to 
be tabooed and lionised by our neighbours. My wife has been 
looking forward with pleasure to come to London with me for 
some time ; her box was packed the day previous to our leaving. 
On sitting at the table in the evening a direct message came that 
she was not to go to London. We asked ' Why ?' The message 
came again, 'She is not to go to London.' We asked again, 
' Why V ' Cannot give the reason why, now.' We had as much 
faith in spiritualism as this, that my wife stopped at home, and I 
am come to London alone. Some times bad spirits come to the 
table and talk nonsense; as soon as we get this we give up 
sitting directly. On one occasion, when my brother was con- 
trolling, he said, ' This is very hard work/ ' Why V we asked. 
' Because there are so many bad spirits present, and it is difficult 
to come to you ; and, I say, don't sit any more for a fortnight.' " 
I have now given you this gentleman's testimony. On parting, 
we arranged to spend Thursday together. 

Thursday morning, according to arrangement, I met my friend, 
and the first place we went to was the New British Gallery, Old 
Bond Street, to see Miss Houghton's spirit drawings. These 
marvellous productions filled the whole gallery. The exhibition 
of them has been open for four months, and closed on the 30th 
day of September last. To give you a full or an adequate con- 
ception of these marvellous productions of spirit-power would be 
impossible, as they are translucent, and so unlike anything that 



17 

is earthly. Not only so ; but they would be unmeaning to any one 
unacquainted with the facts of spiritualism. Some of the 
pictures resemble beautiful flowers and fruits, but these flowers 
and fruits are unknown to our botanists; they are natives of the 
spirit-realms. Do we not often sing this of heaven : " There 
everlasting spring abides," of "never-fading flowers," and of 
" fields of living green ?" But do we mean or believe what we 
sing? Are not the words to many of us a farce and a myth, 
and we never perceive nor realise their spiritual truth. Other 
pictures appear like the finest chenille and lace work; others have 
endless evolutions, carried on in circles large and small ; others 
strike and dash in straight lines diverging from centres, and 
go far beyond the margin of the picture, as if there were not 
sufficient space to execute the work. When magnified by a 
powerful glass, they still look beautifully perfect, and there are no 
blotches to be detected under the power of the glass, as in 
ordinary paintings. These productions have puzzled some of our 
best artists, as such harmony and blending of colours they have 
never yet been able to produce. Miss Houghton's hand, while 
drawing these pictures, was controlled by the spirit of Henry 
Lenny, a departed artist, and though she was conscious herself 
when she sat to draw, still she was perfectly unconscious of what 
was about to be done. The colours are mixed by the controlling 
spirit, and the picture drawn by the brush without any prelimi- 
nary preparation. I will give you her own description, which I 
copy from her catalogue; but, before giving the extract, and 
while this thought referring to drawing is upon the mind, I would 
tell you that there are spirit writing-mediums : that is, when the 
writing-medium is under spirit control, if you ask a question 
the controlling spirit will take the hand of the medium as if it 
were its own, and dash you off an answer in an instant. The 
medium is perfectly unconscious of what she is writing; not only 
so, it is not her own hand-writing, but the hand-writing of the 
spirit that is controlling her, and if that spirit controlling is 
known, and you could get some of the writing done in his life-time, 
you would find the writing executed through the medium to be 
the facsimile of it. Now, here, again, is the point : Here is an 
intelligent answer written out, and we are bound to admit that it 
must be an intelligent act. I have seen the writing myself from 
a writing medium, and the characters of many such mediums are 
such that they could not be a party to trickery or falsehood. Now 



18 
I turn to Miss Houghton's own description of her dra wings : — 

" To make the character and design of this Exhibit ion understood, I must 
explain that in the execution of the Drawings my hand has been entirely 
guided by Spirits, no idea being formed in my own mind as to what was going 
to be produced, nor did I know, when a stroke was commenced, whether it 
would be carried upwards or downwards. I wiU give a slight sketch of the 
manner in which the power came to myself, so as to aid others in their 
endeavours to be similarly successful. 

In the summer of 1859 I first heard of the possibility of communion with 
the spirits of those who have passed away from the mortal form ; and having 
received proofs that it was indeed a reality, I was anxious to obtain the gift 
of mediumship, to be thus reunited to the many dear ones whom I had lost, 
and still bewailed. For three months mamma and I sat for about half an hour 
each evening at a small table, with our hands resting lightly upon it, and at 
the expiration of that period, we were rewarded for our patience by the table 
being gently tipped towards me, and having messages thus given to us by 
means of the alphabet. We were then told by the communicating spirits that 
we must not rush headlong into this new joy, but must use it soberly, and 
that we were only to have our seance once a week, Sunday evening being the 
best, as we then should be less disturbed by evil influences. I was also always 
to " try the spirits " according to the directions given 1 John iv., 1, 2, 3. 
" Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of 
God : because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby 
know ye the Spirit of GJ-od : every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh is of God ; but every spirit that confesseth not that Jesu3 
Christ is come in the flesh is not of God ;" Which text receives additional 
strength by being compared with 1 Corinthians xii., 3. " And no man can say 
that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," 

I adhered closely to all these directions, and we thus went on quietly for 
above a year, when I got a planchette, and our messages were then written 
with that aid. In July, 1861, 1 heard of Mrs. Wilkinson's spirit drawings, so 
on the evening of the 20th, I asked whether my sister Zilla, who had been an 
accomplished artist while upon earth, could guide my hand for spiritual work, 
but neither she nor my brother Cecil (whom I asked as he was about the ago 
of Mrs. Wilkinson's young son, who was her guiding spirit) could be permitted 
to do it, but Cecil then brought Henry Lenny, who had been a deaf and dumb 
artist, and he immediately controlled my hand, which was resting on the 
planchette, to form various curved lines, after which I was impressed to 
remove the black lead pencil, and replace it with a blue one, with which he 
worked upon the same piece of paper, JSTo. 1 ; and I obtained leave to sit every 
evening for the purpose of drawing. When the first three sheets had been 
filled, I asked my guide to do a flower, which he did, and then wrote the name 
of it on another piece of paper. After a few day's work, I was desired to take 
the pencil in my hand, instead of using the planchette ; thus another step was 
gained, and on the 6th of August I began with colours, having on the previous 
day been told to put a sheet of paper into the drawing-board in readiness, and 
from that time I have continued to do them in water colours, without any 
kind of preliminary pencil sketch. 

I earnestly hope that some of the visitors to this gallery, who have leisure 



19 

to devote themselves to it, will go home, and try to obtain this delightful gift, 
but they must bear in mind that extreme patience and perseverance are needed 
for all spiritual work. In my own case, the drawing power would appear to 
have come with very great rapidity, but they must remember that I had 
already been a medium for upwards of a year and a half, after having steadily 
striven for it during three months. For the drawing phase I was also prepared 
by my own earthly training, having devoted the chief part of my life to that 
accomplishment, until Zilla's death, in 1851, so crushed me, that I felt as if I 
should never again use pencil or brush. The spirits say that when once the 
fact is acknowledged that they can work through a mortal hand, it is not 
really more surprising when they draw through a medium who has not learned 
than through one who has ; they can, of course, better guide the trained hand, 
and make a more speedy progress if they are thus relieved from all the elemen- 
tary part, which must be gone through, for no person can spring, at one 
bound, to a pinnacle of heart perfection, any more than an acorn can in one 
season become a widely spreading oak. 

I have numbered the drawings chronologically for a double purpose. In 
the first place the character of the work is so totally unlike all mortal experi- 
ence* that the eye, even of an artist, will better appreciate the later ones, by 
being led up to them by the gradual changes of style, and secondly, because 
the spiritual significance deepened in proportion with my own development. 
The early ones are but very faint shadows of what they are intended to repre- 
sent, because my own spirit was still too much clogged with earthliness to 
grasp the hidden mysteries beyond the veil, or even to have them pourtrayed 
through my mediumship." — GKeoegiana Houghton. 

Various Notes as copied from Catalogue. 

When the water-colour drawings were commenced, I gradually 
gained faint glimmerings of their meaning, but nothing detailed 
except the positive fact that they were representations of real 
objects growing in spirit regions, and not simply allegorical, as I 
had thought probable. After the lapse of a few months, I began 
to receive the interpretations inspirationally, and I will by degrees 
present the leading thoughts. 

Spirit Flowers. — Simultaneously with the birth of a child 
into the earth life, a flower springs up in spirit realms, which 
grows day by day in conformity with the infant's awakening 
powers, expressing them by colour and form, until by degrees the 
character and life stand revealed in the floral emblem; each tint, 
whether strong or delicate, being clearly understood by spirit 
beholders; each petal, floret, fibre, and filament, shewing forth, 
like an open book, the sentiments and motives, however com- 
plicated, of the human prototype. But to dwellers upon earth 
the pictured representations require interpreting, but we can 
only faintly shadow forth, either in colours or words, these 



20 

drawings being but miniatures of the realities, which far exceed 
them in their glorious hues, and have a speech transcending 
mortal language. Yellow filaments issue from the heart of the 
flower, recording each action of the life, such as are good rising 
as a sweet incense to heaven, the faulty, or evil, going downwards. 
The leaves express the temper. 

Spirit Fruits. — The fruit, which corresponds to the earthly 
term of the heart, represents the inner life, with its passions, 
sentiments, and affections, and is covered with minute fibres, 
indicating the thoughts ; but those cannot have any expression in 
a drawing. The red lines are filaments which spring forth as the 
individual makes any new acquaintance, also those of their 
relatives and friends. These take their rise and their course 
according to the degree of connection between them, either of 
relationship or of spiritual affinities. Only a small portion are 
traced out on any of the fruits, but in the originals they rise 
away from them, forming a kind of transparent external net-work, 
which gives a warm glow to the whole. 

The spirits dwell in various regions. The unhappy spirits in 
places of darkness and misery beyond the power of man's imagi- 
nation to conceive. There they remain until repentance for sin 
begins to awaken ; they then desire light, which is immediately 
vouchsafed to them, and the blackness by which they are sur- 
rounded becomes rather less dense. Spirits of a higher grade 
may then be listened to when they strive by teaching to strengthen 
the repentant feelings ; but alas ! their companions in misery are 
often unwilling to witness an improvement in which they are 
not inclined to share, and endeavour to detain them from an 
upward progress. Many are the trials to which they must be 
subjected as they rise through the different degrees into the next 
sphere, there being seven spheres, and seven degrees in each. I 
am anxious to impress upon mortals how much more difficult it is 
there, than even upon earth, to resist the evil influences around, 
even although the sufferings are so intense, but all appears so 
hopeless. Thus the unhappy spirits may remain in such a state 
even for centuries, especially as it is repentance, not remorse, 
which must be awakened ; grief for their sins, not anger at the 
penalty incurred. A little progress, however, being made, they 
thirst for more, and thus, by degrees, they may reach the next 
sphere. But again and again a kind of apathy seems to take 
possession of them, and sometimes they even retrograde, so that 



21 

the progress through the lower spheres is generally very length- 
ened. Those spirits who still remain in the lower spheres have 
but little power of locomotion, but in the higher ones they can 
travel through infinite space, the limits being only according to 
their own onward progress, for as they become more etherealised 
by their own ever increasing sense of happiness in their advance 
through the various degrees of the different spheres, they can rise 
to more rarified regions, so as ever to be approaching nearer to 
the perfect light of Heaven itself. A radiance surrounds each 
spirit, of more or less brilliancy, according to the sphere they 
have reached. This radiance is of certain hues for each sphere, 
gradually increasing in size, aud altering somewhat in form for 
each degree. Spirits in the two lower spheres have no radiance, 
the only difference being in rather less of blackness. In the third 
and fourth it may scarcely be called such, but it is, at any rate, a 
kind of light ; thus, in the third it is brown, gradually becoming 
lighter, and in the fourth it is grey. In the fifth the green hue 
of hope is seen, in the sixth violet ; and in the entrance to the 
seventh a bright blue light, gradually acquiring vivid rainbow 
tints, which then fade off to a light so vivid that scarcely any 
colour is to be seen, all being so gloriously mingled. As high as 
the sixth sphere may be attained by spirits who hold mistaken 
views with respect to the Holy Trinity, but the seventh sphere 
can only be reached by those who have secured their salvation by 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, their Hope and their Redeemer. 
The others may be attained by works of charity and purity, and 
sincere repentance for all their sins. Christians, that is, those 
who believe in the Divinity of Christ, even if they have committed 
any serious crimes, are more easily influenced to repentance, and 
are therefore more likely to rise speedily than such as make their 
reason into a god. Those who have never heard of the Saviour 
are also more open to conviction in the after-life than those who 
have rejected Him upon earth, and, in their upward progress, they 
are willing to receive instruction from spirits in the seventh 
sphere, who are attracted to those who they know will be willing 
to receive in a child-like spirit the great Truth of man's Re- 
demption. 

Spiritual Crown of Miss Houghton. — The Spiritual Crown, 
the crown of Glory, the Crown of good works, — literally as well 
as figuratively. Every thought, word, and deed bears spiritual 
fruit, and while emanating from the human being, is accompanied 



22 

by a radiant line of colour, if good ; and by a line of darkness or 
even of blackness, if bad. The radiant lines are gathered up by 
the guardian spirits of the individual, and by them woven into a 
crown ; but often it is a case of great difficulty, for the glittering 
threads are so fine that very many are required before the small- 
est morsel can be woven, and the dark or black threads frequently 
obliterate the work altogether, so that they whose life is habitually 
evil, can have no crown until the evil habits are overcome. Think 
of it, ye who give way to evil passions or violent tempers ! every 
unkind word undoes a portion of the work of those loving ones, 
who would strive to aid you in overcoming the temptations of 
your own nature and of evil influences. Every unholy thought 
tarnishes the fabric, and they are thus often compelled to repeat 
their labours, perhaps again to be demolished. Kemember also, 
that the virtues must not lie dormant, like brightly coloured 
stars, reposing in the heart, they must come forth and work, or 
the bright thread does not issue forth. As the radiant material 
accumulates, they gradually form it into a gossamer-like texture, 
brocaded as it were with lovely patterns, which they shape into a 
kind of turban, and the numerous transparent folds shew through 
one another with marvellous brilliancy ; or sometimes they con- 
dense the threads, and form of them gems of varied hues." 

I have given you these extracts, compare them with the scrip- 
tures, which teaches that all our deeds and actions are known. 
There is nothing secret nor hidden but shall be brought to light, 
if this truth was really felt and realised, what a mighty influence 
it would wield over the lives of men. 

I would say, further, that I had an interesting chat with Miss 
Houghton, the Artist. She is a private lady, zealous for the truth 
of spiritualism. Her exhibition was not a pecuniary success ; its 
expences and responsibilities were borne by herself, and she has 
made some considerable sacrifice, and taken no small amount of 
trouble in order that her drawings may be seen by the world. I 
mention this that you may not be under the impression that the 
exhibition was a money-getting scheme. I consider that of all 
schemes for getting money, that of getting money out of spirit- 
ualism is the most iniquitous and damnable. I do not mean to 
say that the servant is not worthy of his hire, but I mean when, 
money alone is his sordid desire and end. I was asked what led 
me to inquire into the subject, and I related to her the circum- 
stances whereby I was led to it, step by step, and I informed her 



23 

that I was come truth-seeking upon this absorbing question. I 
related to her what I had seen, and how my mind revolted at 
some of the manifestations, to which she replied that there were 
many who were no friends of the cause, and who injured it by 
their proceedings, but still that did not affect spiritualism as a 
truth. I asked how it was that spiritualists so contradicted each 
other — here are two mediums sitting at the ends of a table, one 
says " Christ is God," the other says, " no, Christ is a man," and 
thus take away His divinity. If the statements are thus contra- 
dictory, how can we rely on spirit-manifestations, since they would 
lead us seriously astray. The reply was this, that we were to test 
the spirits, and if they spake not according to the truth of God's 
word, not believe them. This is the test — " Beloved, believe not 
every spirit, for he that confesseth not that Christ is God come in 
the flesh, is not of God." Then how do you account for the 
opposite opinion from the spirit-world ? Do you think as men die 
they retain their earthly views and creeds, thus expressing what 
I had contended for— that death to a man is not a moral 
change- — he is not changed mentally — but only a physical change ; 
thus he is the same man the moment after death that he was 
the moment before ; the spirit-world, so to speak, picks him 
up just where this world left him. "Your remarks" she replied, 
"are just right. What a man sows he reaps, he that is unbelieving 
is an unbeliever still, and he that is dishonest, dishonest still, 
thus it is we are surrounded by good and bad spirits, and if a bad 
spirit controls, he teaches lies as in his earth-life ; if a good spirit 
controls, he teaches truth as in his earth-life." " Then you do think 
it is possible to be in communion with saints ?" "Yes, I believe 
we are led to believe it from the scriptures. I am also persuaded 
that thousands who stand up sabbath after sabbath and say 'I 
believe in the communion of saints' yet do not believe it." Miss 
Houghton replied and said, "the communion of saints in my 
experience was a reality. My bible is my constant companion, it 
is only as we ascend out of self and can sit at the feet of Christ 
that we can realise the blessedness of His truth ; the world knows 
nothing of the reality ; the natural sense cannot discern the 
spiritual things of God. I am in constant communion with my 
departed friends : I never do anything without spirit-guidance : 
I am here this morning under spirit-control, and while I have 
been talking to you my nephew has come, I now feel his finger in 
my hand, which is the sign of presence ; I feel it, though not visible 



24 

to the natural eye, as plainly as if your fingers were there. My 
departed mother, when she comes has always a sign of her presence, 
she kisses me on my right cheek, and my sister kisses me on my 
left. " As I talked with this good woman my inner man was 
moved, and I felt that as men we had not as yet realised the 
fulness of God's truth — that we had, to a certain extent, over- 
looked the deep and solid realities of the gospel blessing, and so 
far we have been content with the surface. It is my decided 
conviction that Irving, Wesley, Whitfield, and a host of other 
worthies, must have felt this mighty power : to them spirit com- 
munion was a reality ; the gospel in all its fulness was a reality, 
and thus they were nerved and wielded by a mighty power that 
was not their own, and thus, too, it was that men felt and feared 
beneath their mighty influences. This is what we want now in 
our own age, if it was ever wanted, and it is my decided conviction 
that if sought for, it is to be obtained, and when obtained and 
realised in the soul in all its fulness, Ministers would then preach 
with a power that would be irresistible ; whereas now, for want 
of a realization of the gospel in its fulness, the sermons of many 
have no power or life. 

I was much delighted with my interview with Miss Houghton, 
it was one of profit, not only to me but also to my friend who was 
with me. Her experience in spiritualism was confirmatory of 
what I had written, which to me was not a little gratification. 

I have spoken of the questions which were now constantly 
coming to me by letter in reference to my work, and on mentioning 
some of them to her, she caught up one, and this brings a circum- 
stance to my mind which she related and which I will give you 
presently. 

One writes thus, catching up my theory — " If the soul and the 
body are of the same shape, which you say is the case in your book, 
how is it that I, having lost two teeth, cannot feel my spiritual 
teeth in the same way as a man who has lost his leg, feels his 
spiritual leg?" "Well" she said "how did you answer him?" 
"Thus — you came into the world without teeth, and when you 
required more solid food to build the body, the teeth came; the 
teeth are the grinders of the mill, the food must be ground by 
them before it can make blood to build the body and make flesh. 
Now the Apostle says that flesh and blood would not be required 
in heaven, as there they hunger and thirst no more, consequently 
the teeth would not be required to grind food in order to build a 



25 

natural body: still, I had no reason to disbelieve that there were 
spiritual teeth, as well as a spiritual leg." " Well, very good, but 
they have teeth in heaven" Miss Houghton replied — " I know a 
lady who has the power to see her double, or, in other words, her 
own spirit. Now, having formerly had her two front teeth stick- 
ing out, she had them drawn, and their place supplied by two 
artificial ones. When she sees her own spirit, instead of seeing 
it with the artificial teeth, she sees it with the two teeth as before 
extracted." I spoke also of the objectionable character of much 
of the spiritualist literature, and remarked how many there were 
who denied the divinity of our Lord. " You have heard of the 
celebrated William Howitt, a man of world-wide literary fame ; 
he was a Unitarian, but became a convert to the Christian faith 
through spiritualism. I wrote to him for his experience — how he 
was led to embrace the doctrine of the Trinity. He sent it to 
me, and if you would like a copy of it, I will write it out and send 
it to you." " I should be pleased with it, as it is the testimony of 
such men that I want." This letter is so full of excellence that 
as I have entered into every detail I must give it to you with the 
rest, though I have no authority for doing so. A letter of such 
weight and value ought to be known : — 

I wrote to Mr. Howitt, January 10th, 1870, asking him if he could give 
any statement as to the steps by which he had been led from Unitarianism to 
an acknowledgement of the divinity of Christ, as it might aid those who were 
thinking over the matter, and might possibly have the blesssed result of 
bringing others also to see the truth. The following is a copy of his 
answer : — 

Esher, January 11th, 1870. 
Dear Miss Houghton, 

As to the reasons which induced Mrs. Howitt and myself 
to revise our Unitarian creed and accept the fact of the divinity of Christ, we 
were entreated to do it by our friendly communicating spirits ; and though 
not inclined to believe spirits on their own statements, without further 
evidence or very strong probability, these invisible counsellors had so thorough- 
ly shewn us their truthfulness that we were willing to review the affirmations 
both the Prophets and the Gospels on this head, and these then appeared to 
us so conclusive that we thoroughly embraced the idea. I do not pretend to 
say that there are not difficulties connected with the conception of the natures 
of God and of Christ ; there are enormous ones, but these arise out of our 
finite faculties and present conditions of existence. They are such as, I 
believe, must ever attend this first earthly life, and may not fully solve 
themselves throughout eternity : but these difficulties exist in us and around 
us in all that we see and experience. We have a difficulty in reconciling the 
distributions of what we call human fortunes : we have equally a difficulty in 



26 

comprehending the mode of our own existence, and what really are spirit and 
matter. We cannot solve these things, but we can see and feel that they do 
positively exist : and we see that scripture history is a true history, and that 
the prophets authenticate Christ, and Christ the prophets and the past history 
of the Hebrews. Taking, then, the solemn affirmations of Christ as to His 
nature, and the clear and solemn predictions of the prophecies of thousands 
of years, we have a basis of historic evidence in itself of the profoundest 
solidity, and this is most nobly confirmed by the divine charactor and the 
divine teachings of our Saviour. Of all the miracles of His history, the 
greatest by far is the heavenly beauty and perfection of His character, so 
totally different from all the loftiest imaginings of the Greeks, so unapproach- 
able in its gentleness, patience, utter absence of resentment, and complete 
fulness of love. In Jesue Christ we see a heroism so inconceivable to the 
heroes of the greatest nations of the earth, that not merely neither G-reek nor 
Roman could imagine it, but the so-called Christian nations to this day cannot 
perceive its grandeur, much less realize it in action. 

These, dear Miss Houghton, are the reasons which compel us to believe in 
the divinity of Jesus Christ. We have His own word for the fact, and not 
His word only, but His life, His death, and His spirit breathed forth in 
sentiments every one of which is stamped with the impress of Godhead. The 
gospels are not only as a whole infinitely superior to all others put together, 
but any one of His teachings is worth all other books and philosophies 
put together, I would rather possess the parable of the prodigal son than all 
the volumes of mythology or theology of ancient or modern times, exclusive of 
the Bible. Neither Plato, Pythagoras, Confucius, Buddha, nor the whole 
collective body of pagan philosophers and theologians ever rose, or could rise, 
to the utterance of a narrative at once so simple in its wording and so 
sublimely profound in its teachings of the infinite love of the heavenly 
Father to his erring children, so re-assuring and consolatory to the awakened 
sinner, as that single chapter— one only in a blessed multitude. Nothing 
shews so clearly the debased condition of the human mind in the present age, 
the disordered perception of the really true and beautiful in sentiment and 
spirituality, as the incapacity of so many for discerning the greatness of the 
gospel system of religion and anthropology, and their giving equal value with 
these to systems so poor and meretricious. It is like preferring paste to 
diamonds. 

With Mrs. Howitt's love, I remain, dear Miss Houghton, 

Yours faithfully, 

William Howitt. 

We left the new British Gallery in Bond Street for the Inter- 
national Exhibition, where we rambled a few hours; but having 
an appointment by letter to meet a gentleman in the East end of 
London, who was to introduce me at a seance, the gentleman who 
had been my companion through the day accompanied me. 
Shortly after tea, we were introduced by this gentleman at the 
seance of the Dalston Inquirers into Spiritualism; I was a perfect 
stranger, and so was my companion, to all present, and I was also 



27 

a stranger to the gentleman that introduced us, only knowing 
him by correspondence, through the medium of my book; but 
though a stranger I can vouch for his honour and honesty in this 
matter, as I feel assured he could not be a party to trickery or 
imposition. The Dalston Inquirers into Spiritualism are a party 
of Ladies and gentlemen who joined themselves into a society, 
prayerfully and earnestly to investigate the matter. The party 
present was rather larger than usual, so we were split into two 
circles, and arranged around two round tables, each party being 
locked in. My party sat at a very heavy round table. There 
was present Miss Cook, a clairvoyant medium, that is, one who 
has partial open vision, and has power, under control, to see the 
spirits of departed friends. Mediumistic power has many phases, 
the power possessed by one medium not being possessed by 
another. The gifts are diversified; where one has power to 
prophesy, another has not the power, but may have the power to 
speak in a foreign tongue. Another sees; another cannot see, but 
can transfer. I make this explanation that you may better under- 
stand the phenomena manifested. Miss Cook seemed to possess 
more remarkable power than mediums usually; she sat next to 
me, and another lady, Mrs. Eichardson, a clairvoyant medium, 
next again; next to her was the gentleman who introduced us; 
next again was a lady, a trance medium; next again my companion, 
who was a powerful medium; next the secretary; next another 
lady; next a gentleman; and then Miss Cook. These formed the 
circle; and as you may conclude, we had a good strong battery, 
and could expect results. I have detailed the thing in this way 
that those unacquainted with the matter may understand it fairly. 
The secretary read a prayer at the commencement of the seance, 
written the day previous by Miss Cook under spirit control and 
under the following circumstances : — She was sitting at her desk 
translating French into English, when a spirit controlled her left 
hand while she was writing French with her right. She was thus 
writing with both hands at the same time, and while she was 
perfectly conscious of what she was doing with her right hand, 
she was unconscious what was being done with the left ; when 
finished, she found it was a beautiful prayer which was to be read 
at the commencement of every seance. Now, again, to write a 
prayer must be an intelligent act, and it must be a matter 
impossible to be translating French, and to be composing a prayer 
at the same moment, thus it must have been an intelligent act 



28 

apart from her own spirit. We joined hands and rested them 
on the table lightly. The lights were turned out (but understand 
they get similar manifestations in the light, but not so powerful). 
All present were honest inquirers, and from the character and 
tenor of those present, I am persuaded there was no imposition 
practised. We had not sat long before one of the mediums asked 
if there were any spirits present. Then there came three tremen- 
dous flounces of the table — yes. Here understand they do not 
get the response by knockings, as at the other seance, which I 
mentioned, but by the tilting of the table three times for " yes," 
and once for " no" ; but if the understanding is that the spirit 
shall knock instead of tilt, he will respond by knocks. The tubes 
were on the table ; I asked if they heard voices, but as yet they 
had not been favoured at their seances with oral answers direct 
from the spirit, but the tubes were there should they be required. 
Mrs. Richardson said " Sambo is come ; here he is ; I can see 
him standing on the table ; he is the controlling spirit of the 
trance-medium." My friend was fearfully afraid she would hurt 
herself, but the reply was that though the diairs and tables some- 
times fly over the place in the dark, no one ever gets hurt. Now 
Sambo begins to laugh through the medium, with such a voice as 
the medium could not produce in her normal state. Now come 
tremendous convulsions of the table, a trembling more like an 
earthquake than anything else, and of course it was more so to 
me than to those to whom these manifestations were usual. Mrs. 
Richardson's chair is now drawn from under her, hurled up over 
her head, and pitches in the centre of the table ; Miss Cook's 
chair is now drawn away, and put back against the wall. One of 
the spirits controlling takes her round the waist, and sends her 
going like the pendulum of a clock. I asked if she could not 
control herself and keep still, she said "impossible," and then 
suddenly exclaimed " Oh ! my friend is come !" " What friend V 
I replied. " My spirit-friend who is always with me." " Can you 
see her ?" " Yes." " How does she look ?" <• She is clothed in 
white and surrounded with a celestial glory, a description of 
which I cannot express in language ; she is bending over me, and 
looking at me with a smile." "Do you know what you are 
saying ? " " Yes, I am perfectly conscious of what I am saying 
to you." "Then you are not Mke the trance-medium over the 
other side, unconscious of what she has been doing ; but you 
have spirit-sight and still retain your consciousness ?" " Yes, per- 



29 

fectly so ?" " How do you know the spirit which you say you see to 
be your friend ?" Mark the answer. " Because she has the same 
identity in feature now that she had in her life-time." To get my 
convictions proved in this way as to what I had written in The 
Seat of the Soul was remarkable, and it proved the fact that the 
soul is the same shape as the body, and must have the same 
identity. I leave you to judge how I felt at such a demonstrative 
proof. Those of you who have read the first part of my little 
work will remember I concluded by saying that " had Plato lived 
later in life, and could he have listened to Paul on Mars Hill at 
Athens, what a meeting that would have been !" To have had all 
his convictions proved and realised ! Just such a realisation was 
mine when I came in contact with the truths of spiritualism. 
And though some portion of the press has tabood me on what I 
had written, the tabooing proves nothing ; we want facts, proofs, 
common sense, and not bombastic abuse. Now to turn to the 
seance again : Miss Cook said, " I see my friend now as plainly as 
I saw you when you entered the room in the light. Another 
spirit has come, I have noticed him before, he is very much like a 
Chinaman, he is coming up to you, he is now at your back looking 
over you." " And is it so ?" " Yes." " Well, I am not afraid 
he will do me any harm." Mark here, spirits pass in and out of 
rooms through stone walls, as we pass through the open air. 
Now I have shown before that if a man has his leg off and he 
puts his stump against a wall, his spiritual leg is through the wall, 
and his foot out on the other side. Such must be the case if the 
soul is immaterial. Here my statements are realised again : the 
doors of the room in which we are are locked, and the spirits 
come through the walls. Iron doors and granite walls do not a 
prison make, and cannot confine the soul. The chairs are again 
sent flying up on the table, and taken away from under several of 
the sitters. A light is struck, and the displaced things re- 
arranged. The trance-medium, I notice, appears in a deep sleep. 
The lights are turned out, and, directly, the trance-medium's 
chair is taken from under her, swung back against the door, and 
she falls down, where she is allowed to remain. The convulsions 
of the table were sfcrong, and, as I thought in myself, the devil 
himself must be here, as well as the spirits of the good, kicking 
up these capers, so I asked the controlling spirit if it was profit- 
able to practice spiritualism : three flounces of the table — " yes." 
" Is it wrong to practice spiritualism ?" One flounce of the table 



30 

— "no." Mrs. Richardson then said, "I see a spirit friend, a 
female, she came and stood over the gentleman that introduced us. 
Now I see a light like a star come and go quickly. At one seance 
I saw two lights like meteors ascend and descend over the 
medium's head. I find this is nothing unusual, the room is some- 
times fall of lights, and at other times it becomes quite light, 
when the source from w T hich the light comes cannot be traced." 
Mrs. Richardson describes the spirit. The gentleman said " That 
is my mother, she is my guardian angel ; she is always present 
with me." " How is she looking ?" " She is looking on you with a 
smile, bending her head over you, with her hands lifted." " Can 
you place my hand into her's ?" Mrs. Richardson took his hand 
to place it in his mother's hand (she had passed away many years) 
but, he said, "I cannot feel it." I asked if, when she was 
present, he could possibly feel his mother's hand. He said " Yes, 
as plainly as I felt your's when I first took it." He evidently 
felt the power of his mother's presence. He said as follows : — 
" From my youth I always had an impression that my departed 
mother was near me, and had her eye upon me, and while a young 
man, when I went where I ought not to have been, I was always 
impressed with her presence, and I felt that her eye was upon me 
with the same watchfulness as it was in her life-time. Impressed 
with this truth, as a young man I was kept from those dens of 
iniquity that so many of my fellow young men were ensnared 
into." If we all, as men, could only realise such a feeling as this 
fact, that our loved ones who are gone before are watching over 
us, what a mighty impetus it would give to our life and character ! 
"What a mighty check to wrong doing ! And does not the 
scriptures warrant the fact that we have guardian angels — a cloud 
of witnesses compassing us about ? But, alas, we have become so 
sordid and devilish that we have failed to realise the fact, and 
thus the scriptures in its fulness have no power upon the soul. 
This gentleman said he could never get rid of the impression that 
his mother was his guardian angel. What a delightful thought ! 
Who could better guard than a mother ? What must be her 
feelings and sympathies, now free from earth's alloy? My soul 
seems stirred with enthusiasm when I contemplate the fact ; but, 
he says, "when I first took to spiritualism my mother was the 
first to come to me through the medium of the table, and she 
assured me of her presence and guardianship, then my conviction 
became a reality. I now meet her in my own home, I can feel 



31 

her touch and hand as I feel your's, and I speak and converse 
with her face to face as a man converses with his friend, and she 
gives me her counsel and advice as to how I shall proceed in life." 
I have again deviated from the subject of the seance that I may 
give you full detail of my impressions as we proceed. But to 
turn to the seance again : Miss Cook is again under the swaying 
influence and cannot control herself, when suddenly she is taken 
by her controlling spirit, sent up in the air clean off the ground, 
twirled right round and comes down quickly but gently in the 
middle of the table. I held her hand one side, a gentleman the 
other ; as she went up she pulled up my arm with her. I still 
held tight, and as she was twisted round her arm was twisted, as 
I still held her by the hand when she came down. A light was 
struck, and she was relieved from her position. Lights were 
turned out, and again there were tremendous convulsions of the 
table. I requested Mrs. Eichardson to ask the controlling spirit 
at the table if I should become a medium. It had been asserted 
that I was one already, by natural intuition, or I could never have 
written the book The Seat of the Soul. When the question was 
put, there came three flounees of the table — " yes." " How 
many months first ?" Four flounces of the table — "four months." 
"I asked the question," said the' medium, "before, mentally to 
myself, and I got the same reply — four months." What powers I 
am about to realise I cannot say. I was not well, neither had I 
been for some weeks ; I had been rather over worked and over 
anxious about my Patent Invalid Couch, which I was in town 
exhibiting. So I said " Enquire of the controlling spirit after my 
health." " Is this gentleman- well ? One flounce of the table — 
"no." "Will you tell us what he is suffering from?" Three 
tilts of the table—" yes." " Is it his lungs ?" One tilt— "no." 
"•Is it the pleura of the lung?" One tilt— "no." "Is it his 
heart ?" One tilt — " no." " Is it from a sluggish liver ?" Three 
good tilts — "yes." "Will you prescribe for him?" "Three 
tilts — " yes." " How will you do it — through the means of the 
alphabet?" Three tilts — "yes." Began then to repeat the 
alphabet slowly. A, B, one tilt on the table — B. Began again, 
A, B, C, D, E, P, G, H, I, J, K, L, one tilt on the table— L. 
Began again and so continued until " blue" was spelt out. The 
medium caught the sense, and she said " Is it blue pill ?" Three 
tremendous flounces — "yes." "The controlling spirit has told 
your disease, and prescribed for you ; what do you want more ?" 



32 

It is now requested that Mrs. Richardson, a fine well-built lady, 
about 14 stone, should be taken up and placed upon the table. 
Her chair is at once taken from under her, and the controlling 
spirit begins to lift her off the ground, when she entreated him 
not to do it, and he at once ceased. Now came again the 
convulsions of the table, which began to rock and push about ; 
it pushed hard against me and Mrs. Richardson : we gave all 
the resistance we could, and my friend on the opposite side 
pulled with all his might, but to no purpose ; we were both sent 
against the wall, and jammed between the wall and the table. 
A light was then struck, and the seance broke up. I noticed 
Mrs. Richardson's eyes were luminous when she saw the spirits, 
which continued when the lights were on. She said, " I still see 
the spirits:" with the same, I saw a shudder dart across her 
eyes, and then she said, " They are gone." 

On Friday night I went to another seance at 15, Southampton 
Row, Holborn ; this was a trance-medium, Mr. Morse, who spoke 
under inspiration, or spirit-control. That is to say, he did not 
speak under the inspiration of the Holy Grhost, as did the 
Apostles, but spoke uuder the inspiration of the spirit that 
controlled him. The company present were well-dressed and 
respectable, many of them inquirers like myself; they were 
arranged in chairs, as at a lecture-room. The medium, or 
speaker, stands upon a small platform in front of his audience. 
No lights turned out : it is a lecture. The medium sits in his 
chair, and passes into a trance ; while passing into this state, 
there are twitchings of the hands and legs, and convulsions of the 
face. Mr. Morse is now pushed outside his own body, and his 
body, or whole organism, is taken possession of by another spirit, 
that is, by a departed spirit, that once lived on this earth. He 
now stands up, with eyes closed, and speaks in a voice not his 
own, but in the voice of the spirit that is controlling him ; he 
addresses the company on the subject of spiritualism for about 
half-an-hour, after which he invites discussion ; and tells the 
audience he does not want them to ask him who their uncles or 
grandfathers were, as, if they put silly questions, they must 
expect to get silly answers ; and if sensible questions were put, 
they would get sensible answers. Several questions are now put, 
and well answered. I now put a question — " Sir, you said in the 
course of your lecture that education had failed to civilise the 
world, that Christianity had failed to civilise the world, and that 



33 

it was left for spiritualism to do it. What are we to understand 
by such assertions ? That Christianity in itself is ineffectual and 
cannot accomplish the work it is designed to do, or is it the 
machinery, by which Christianity is surrounded, that is inefficient 
and defective?" Answer. — "It is the machinery that is defective ; 
Christianity in itself is perfect and without defect, but it is 
hemmed in on all sides by self: it is self above, it is self beneath, 
it is self on the right hand and on the left ; and by far the greater 
number into whose hands it has been placed, that they may be 
watchers and shepherds over its interests, have disregarded the 
souls of men, and cared only for their own ends and interests. 
Thus spiritualism is the hammer whereby its fetters will be 
broken. Spiritualism is the lever that will lift it from its 
bondage, that it may do its perfect work." " "Well, very good ; 
but there is another point : if spiritualism is true, how is it that 
various mediums under spirit control deny and contradict each 
other? As all the messages come from the spirit-world, you 
would conclude that the statements would harmonise. If we rely 
on the teaching of the spirits, we are like a reed shaken by the 
wind ; we are like men upon shifting sands ; where, then, can we 
find confidence and rest ? Nowhere, I am persuaded, but in the 
Bible, the book of God." Answer.— "The Bible is the only 
reliable book in which we can place confidence, but as regards 
the contradictory statements from the spirit-world, it is like 
this — supposing an inhabitant of this earth were to alight on 
another planet in our own solar system : the inhabitants there, 
being so differently constituted, would be anxious to inquire of the 
stranger where he came from ; they would notice his colour, 
his dress, and inquire about his society and habits of living. He 
says, ' I come from yonder planet, the earth below.' Another 
man comes up from China, and they make a similar inquiry, 
and ask him where he came from. 'From the earth below.' 
'Oh no, you did not,' would be the reply, 'they that come 
from the earth below are white, you are copper-coloured ; they 
wear cloth, you wear cotton ; they live on beef, you live on 
rice.' Another comes up from India. 'Where did you come 
from ? ' ' From the earth below.' ' Oh ! you could not : they 
are white, you are black ; they go dressed, you go naked.' Even 
eo it is with the messengers that come from the spirit-world." 
"Another question, and I have done. Must I infer that there 
is as wide a difference of opinion in the spirit-world as in this— 



34 

thus teaching that as men die, so they carry with them into the 
next world all their views, whether of a sceptical or Christian 
character — thus a man is not one iota changed from what he 
was in his earth-life ? Thus, when a departed spirit controls, he 
brings you his old earth views, and thus the statements are 
contradictory." The answer. — "It is even so; for he that is 
holy is holy still, he that is filthy is filthy still, he that is dishonest 
is dishonest still ; for what a man soweth that doth he also reap." 
Another now asks a question — " If these statements that have 
been referred to are so contradictory, where is the proof and 
truth of spiritualism?" Answer — "Though there is as wide a 
difference of opinion in the spirit-world as in this, still the whole 
of the spirit-world are agreed on two great facts— that is, the 
soul's immortality, and man's responsibility. The spirits of the 
invisible world being agreed on these two great points, proves the 
truth of spiritualism." The controlling spirit concludes his 
lecture and sits down. Mr. Morse now comes out of his trance 
state ; but before quite back to the normal state, another spirit 
takes possession of him, and now he speaks quite in a different 
voice again ; but the spirit now under control is a very witty 
fellow : several questions are put and answered with equal clever- 
ness, but in a different style. I asked this question — " When a 
number of persons sit at a table, is it not that the table is porous 
and becomes charged with magnetism or electricity from the 
bodies of the sitters ; the table thus being charged, it is through 
this medium it is acted upon by the will and thus made to move 
where you bid it, and thus the power that moves the table is 
mind, or Psychic Force ?" Answer — " First, I object (speaking 
cynically) to the word " psychic," because it has been coined by 
infidels who deny the immortality of the soul ; they do not 
believe in the spirit-world, nor in the existence of spirit, thus 
they have given it the name " psychic," a word used by men who 
believe we are individualised apes, that we were never created, but 
that back in the ages of the past we were developed out of the 
lower animals, and that our origin is not from God ! No ; but 
from the lichen that clings to the rocks, or that we come from 
Professor Thomson's life-germs, that fell on this earth from some 
other planet. Bah ! bosh ! It is not psychic force, but spirit 
force from the spirit-world. Now to the question. When a 
number of persons sit round a table, they form a perfect magnetic 
sphere, the magnetic sphere in the natural world corresponds to 



35 

the magnetic sphere in the spirit-world. The magnetic sphere 
in the natural world then rests upon the magnetic sphere in the 
spirit- world, and thus a communication between the two worlds is 
established." Another asks if their hands were not touching the 
table whether there would be the same results. Answer. — 
" Precisely the same results would occur if the hands were not 
touching the table, provided there was a perfect circle by union of 
hands. Another gentleman present then said " If there is such a 
diversity of opinion in the spirit-world/ is there not a distinct line 
of demarcation between the evil and the good ? " Answer. — The 
difficulty appears as in this world, to know where good ends and 
evil begins, the graduations of character are so blended into each 
other ; but in the next world there are lines of demarcation, or 
spheres ; there are several spheres in the spirit-world, and every 
spirit has his own sphere. The more God-hke a man becomes in 
his earth-life, the higher he ascends towards his Maker in the 
higher spheres ; but the more devilish a man is, the lower he is : 
those in the higher spheres can ascend through the lower to 
communicate with the departed of earth, but those in the lower 
spheres cannot for successive ages ascend to the higher, and just 
as a poor and ignorant man would be no companion for the refined 
and cultivated philosopher, so the wicked are no companions for the 
pure and holy. Like loves like and seeks like, and thus they 
exist each in his own sphere, and that according to his earth-life. " 
On relating these questions and answers to a gentleman, he said 
it was ground that had been well worked over by the medium ; but 
I inquired and was informed that it was not so. And if it is so, 
all I can say is, that the ground is worth working over again and 
again. Another asked " what is the good of spiritualism ?" " If it 
only proves the immortality of the soul and a future state that is 
quite sufficient in this age of Infidelity." Another asked if all 
the planetary worlds were inhabited and whether it was possible 
for spirits to visit there. Answer — " Many of them are unfit for 
human inhabitants — they are as yet in a crude state and have to 
pass through many mighty ages, and mighty changes similar 
to that of our own earth's crust, before they will be fitted for 
existence. Mr. Morse now comes out of his trance-state and 
before he is quite recovered, another spirit takes possession of him 
and he speaks in a different voice again. Mr. Morse after 
speaking in this way for an hour and three quarters comes back 
to his normal state ; he seems heavy and tired out. I now ask 



3G 

the chairman if I may be permitted to put Mr, Morse a question 
now he is conscious and in his natural state. Certainly. " Mr. 
Morse', you have been upon that platform speaking and answering 
questions for some time, do you mean to tell this audience that 
now you are back to your normal state you are perfectly uncon- 
scious of any statement you have made here to-night ? " "I am 
not conscious of any thing I have said here this evening." 
" Ladies and Gentlemen, you hear what Mr. Morse says ; now 
there are only two conclusions we can come to. We have either 
listened to a marvel that wants explaining, or we have listened to 
one of the greatest impostors in London. Which is it ? And if an 
imposition, it is the more damnable and flagrant, because practised 
upon an intelligent audience in an enlightened age." A gentleman 
stood up and said "lama stranger here, but I assure you, sir, it 
is not an imposition. I know a lady in my own town who is a 
trance-medium, and when under control she stands and speaks for 
hours on the profoundest philosophical questions, of which she 
knows nothing in her normal state ; further, I know another who 
knows nothing of music in her normal state, but under trance 
influence she plays a piano and sings beautifully." Well, what 
can I say to this? To do such things must be a conscious, 
intelligent act on the part of the agent controlling, be it spirit or 
otherwise. The morning after the seance, I met Mr. Morse, and 
conversed with him on the past evening's proceedings. " There are 
one or two questions I should like to put to you. You say when 
you are under spirit control that your organism is taken possession 
of by another spirit, thus your body is a vehicle for communication 
with the natural world. Well, if another spirit was inside your 
body, you must have been pushed outside ; is that it ?" " Quite 
so," replied Mr. Morse. "Well then, where was your spirit while 
another spirit had possession of your body?" "My spirit was 
in spirit-land." "And what were you about in spirit-land?" 
" Well, I cannot exactly say what I was about last night ; but it 
appears very much like a dream, yet is more real." " Well, how 
did you get back to your body again ; because, when a man quits 
the body he is considered dead?" "I was not separated from 
the body, but was connected by a magnetic cord, which is the 
experience of all trance-mediums." "Well, now, we will admit 
all this — that your spirit can leave your body within certain 
limits and yet remain connected with it. Is it not possible that 
the spirits of various mediums can leave their bodies within 



37 

certain limits, and that it is thus that the chairs, tables, &c, are 
lifted and carried about the room; and thus a great many of the 
capers carried on are not the work of departed spirits but the 
work of the mediums themselves, and this is how we are hum- 
bugged. Is it so ?" " I cannot give an answer to your question ; 
it is certainly a fair one to put, I have not heard 'it put before. 
You had better come next Friday night and put it when I am in 
a trance, and from the controlling spirit you will get an answer." 
"Though I put you this question, Mr. Morse, still I can see, on 
the other hand, that if it is a fact that your organism is controlled 
by another spirit, then while my argument would suggest many of 
the manifestations to be the work of the medium, still the fact of 
your body being controlled by another spirit in your absence, 
speaks for spiritualism. But, further, suppose that when you 
were in that unconscious state the spirit controlling your body 
took the poker and cracked my head. Well, I bring you to 
justice for an assault. "When the charge is made against you, you 
reply and say, 'I dont know anything about it, my lord.' 'But a 
roomful of witnesses can come forward and swear you struck this 
man on the head with the poker.' ' Don't know anything about 
it, my lord.' Where is your responsibility ? If you are not 
responsible, you are considered so. But a man jumps up in court 
and says,* ' It was not Mr. Morse that struck him, my lord, it was 
the controlling spirit.' What an alibi, to be sure ! It seems to 
me something like mesmerism, when the operator makes his 
subject do what he likes : the muscles and body of the man 
mesmerised are operated on just as if they belonged to the 
operator's own organism. The operator sends his subject to steal, 
or do what he thinks proper ; and when the subject is brought 
back to his normal state, he is perfectly unconscious of what he 
has done. Then the subject, if he is sent to steal, and is uncon- 
scious of it, cannot be responsible. So it appears to be with 
spirits ; they take possession of a man's organism as a mesmerist 
does, and they do what they like with it, while the real man that 
belongs to the organism is unconscious of what is done through 
it. " How came you to be a medium, Mr. Morse ?" " Well, at 
the time of the trial Lyon v. Home, the subject was much talked 
of. I laughed at it ; but some friends assured me there was 
something in it. I sat once or twice at a private circle, and one 
night the influence took hold of me and I hallooaed and raved for 
nearly an hour, and they could not pacify me. At last I came to 



38 

myself, but T was perfectly unconscious of what I had been doing. 
(This puts me in mind of the seven devils taking possession of a 
man). I sat again and was soon developed into a trance-speaking 
medium ; but it is not a very enviable position, I can assure you, 
as we get no end of abuse." 

On the morning of the same day, I called on Mr. Serjeant Cox, 
at his chambers at the Temple. As he had taken a deep interest 
in the book I had published, and has had some considerable 
experience, in connection with several scientific men, on this 
subject, I was all the more anxious for a conversation with him ; 
and the more so because he has viewed the matter from a scientific 
point of view, and thus has given the subject, on fair grounds, a 
truthful investigation. As all who read this pamphlet may not 
have heard of the experiments whereby this new force has been 
tested, I will give you a brief account of one made with Mr. D. 
Home by Mr. Huggins, F.R.8., Mr. Crookes, F.R.S., and Mr. 
Serjeant Cox. Mr. Home is invited to Mr. Crookes' house ; there 
is an accordion in a cage, which Mr. Home has never seen before. 
Mr. Home is requested to try his mediumistic power on it 
without touching it. The accordion, without being touched, 
begins to expand and close ; it is now placed into Mr. Home's 
hand, he holding the bottom, with the keys hanging downwards, 
the other hand away, while the hand that holds it is stretched 
the full length from the body. The accordion now opens and 
expands ; the keys are run up and down, and a beautiful air is 
played, with no visible fingers near the keys, though the keys are 
noticed to do their work. Mr. Crookes now slips his hand down 
Mr. Home's arm, and takes the accordion away, keys downwards. 
The accordion still goes on playing. Mr. Crookes then let it go, 
thinking it would fall to the ground, but instead of doing so, the 
law of gravitation did not affect it ; it remained and floated in 
mid-air, and as it floated, still continued to play. Now spiritualists 
say that this is nothing new, as their mediums can see the accord- 
ion borne aloft by spirits, and the spirit figures manipulating 
the keys.* Now, I repeat again, to play a tune must be an 
intelligent act. Mr. Crookes has just published a work, showing 
that there is such a thing as psychic force in nature — a force yet 
unknown to the scientific world, and they give it this designation, 
"psychic," until they can find a better name for it. I asked 

* Mr. Crookes' work on " Psychic Force," one shiUing, of any bookseller. 



39 

Serjeant Cox for his experience ; this, no doubt, we shall get in a 
work that is to be published, but I give you one or two facts he 
gave me, which will show you that these scientific gentlemen 
mentioned above were not humbugged, because the scientific 
world said, when they saw the report of the experiments, that 
these gentlemen were surely deluded, or had been certainly 
humbugged, by Mr Home. Mr. Serjeant Cox told me that he 
had had many sittings with Mr. Home at his own private house, 
and that all his manifestations were in the light, and with no 
possibility of trickery. " If Mr. Home was sitting at one end of 
the table and I at the other, whatever I asked for was brought to 
me by invisible power. A hand-bell was taken up from the table 
and rung by unseen power ; I requested that the bell should be 
brought to me ; it was placed in my hands, and as I took the 
bell, I felt the fingers that had brought it me as plainly as I feel 
the fingers on a natural hand, although I cannot see them. I 
requested that my pocket-book should be taken from my pocket ; 
while the pocket-book was being drawn out, I seized the hand 
that was taking it away by the wrist ; the hand and wrist felt as 
natural as the natural member, though I could not see it." 

I will leave you to judge, reader, how I felt when I got such a 
testimony as this, after proving, as I have, that when the material 
hand is cut off, the .spiritual hand is not cut off, but remains 
intact, connected with the spiritual body — and to know from 
another branch of science, apart from the bible (though the 
bible corroborates it), that there is such a thing as a spiritual 
hand and body. These two branches of evidence are to me two 
witnesses, that give such ocular, demonstrative evidence of the 
soul's immortality, that the combined force of all the infidels in 
the world, with all their reasoning, cannot refute. I asked Mr. 
Cox what led him to inquire into the subject. He told me the 
circumstances, which are very remarkable, but I question whether 
he has ever made them known to the world. Perhaps, like other 
prominent men, from modesty, he has left them as a note in his 
diary, to be known only when he has passed out of this his 
present sphere of usefulness. But the facts that he gave me 
appear to be of such infinite value to the world, as proving the 
doctrine of a future state and the immortality of the soul, that I 
shall give them without his authority. Though he will be sur- 
prised to see them in print, I am not afraid he will censure me 
for so doing. 



40 

" A few rears ago, Mr. Foster, the clairvoyant medium, came to 
this coumtry from America ; I had heard so much of spiritualism, 
that I went to sec him and requested a sitting : and I went 
with the express object that, if I detected any imposition, I 
would expose it. At the sitting, Mr. Foster said, ' There is a 
young man just come into the room, and he is walking up to you ; 
his name is Edward Trenchard, and he wishes to communicate 
with you.' Edward Trenchard was an old companion of mine ; 
he had been dead twenty years or more, and as I w T as a perfect 
stranger to Mr. Foster, and he to me, I was not a little surprised, 
as he could not possibly have known my friend. i Well/ I said, 
'take the communication from him/ The communication was 
given — ' Be sure of this, William, there is a communication 
between the two worlds.' Now Edward Trenchard and myself 
often sat and rambled together, and discussed the question of the 
immortality of the soul, and a future state, and w r e had promised 
each other whichever of us was taken first, if there was a 
possibility of coming back to convince the other of a future state, 
he would do so. My friend died of consumption, and just before 
his death he wrote me his last farewell letter. I have the letter 
over there now which he sent to me more than twenty years ago, 
and in which he states that he was soon about to throw off the 
mortal coil, and that the soul's immortality and a future state 
would soon become in his experience a reality, and reminding me 
of our compact, that if there was ever an opportunity presented, 
after he had passed away, of coming back to convince me of a 
future state, he would do so. No opportunity for twenty years 
had presented itself ; but Mr. Foster is a medium through which 
communications are said to come. Edward Trenchard now fulfils 
his promise, and says shortly and to the point — 'Be sure of this, 
William, there is a communication between the two worlds.' The 
evidence, knowing all the circumstances, was so conclusive, that 
I could say nothing. From that time I have been investigating 
the matter." 

T remarked, "What striking evidence! And how like a circum- 
stance in the life of Lord Brougham !" This I related, but 
Mr Cox was already acquainted with it. I will give it to you, as 
it is similar fact, and worth knowing. Lord Brougham left a 
request on his will that all that he had written on his own life 
should be published, amongst which was the following. I cannot 
give } r ou the words, but as it is facts I have to do with in all I 



41 

have written, I give you the facts of the case. His lordship was 
on a tour somewhere with a friend, and had returned late one 
night to his hotel, and wished for a warm bath before retiring to 
rest ; he enters his bath-room, and just as he is ready to get into 
the bath, looking around, he sees an old school-fellow sitting on 
the chair he had just left ; he had not seen nor heard of him for 
sixty years, neither had his friend been in his thoughts. His 
lordship, knowing his bath-room was secured, was surprised 
how he should come there, and fainted away at his presence. On 
coming to himself, be found his old college-chum gone. He makes 
a note of this in his diary, and regards it as a dream ; but how 
could it be a dream when he was wide awake, and knew what he 
was about, as he was just going to get into his bath ? But his 
lordship, of course, like many others, was afraid that he would be 
tabooed and laughed to scorn over it, and hence called it a dream. 
But he regards it as so remarkable that he records it, on the 19th 
of December, such an hour and year. On inquiring of his family 
at a later date, he receives intelligence of his Mend's death, and 
the next note in his diary is, that his friend died in India 
December 19th, at the very hour he saw him. It brought to 
Lord Brougham's mind a compact that he had entered into with 
his departed friend in his college days. They often rambled 
together and discussed the question of the immortality of the soul 
and a future state, and they entered into a compact ; his lordship 
drew blood from his arm, and his school-fellow drew blood from 
his, then wrote out the compact and signed it in their own blood, 
that if the soul was immortal, whichever died first would appear. 
The promise is fulfilled in that memorable night when his lordship 
was taking his bath ; and this fact was by his own deed requested 
to be published in his biography, and was not without its effect 
upon his lordship, even at eventide.* These two facts alone, in 
the experience of Serjeant Cox and Lord Brougham, have a power 
and truth in proof of the immortality of the soul and a future 

* A work entitled The Booh of Nature, by C. 0. Groom Napier, F.C.S., 
(London, John Cambden Hotten, 1870), has a preface by the late Lord 
Brougham, in which that eminent statesman says : — 

" There is but one question 1 would ask the author, is the spiritualism of 
this work toreign to our materialistic, manufacturing age ? — No ; for amidst 
the varieties of mind which divers circumstances produce, are found those who 
cultivate man's highest faculties j — to these the author addresses himself. 
But even in the most cloudless skies of scepticism I see a rain-cloud, if it be 
no bigger than a man's hand j it is modern spiritualism." 



42 

state, that all the Voltaires, Tom Paynes, Holyoakes, and Brad- 
laughs of the world cannot refute. 

The next spiritualist I came in contact with was Signor 
Damiani, a Sicilian gentleman, who has had some experience in 
spiritualism. I asked him the reason why it was that spiritualists 
put spiritualism before the bible. He said " spiritualists did 
nothing of the kind : spiritualism is a science like all other 
sciences, and is to be studied as such, but it is the grandest and 
sublimest science we haye— the handmaid of divine truth, and is 
to be added to the scripture like all other sciences. No one knows 
its grandeur and sublimity but those who study it." This is the 
gentleman that defended spiritualism when Professors Lewes and 
Thomson attacked it, and he challenged them with £1000 if they 
could prove spiritualism to be a deception or trickery. This 
challenge and the conditions of it can be seen in a monthly paper, 
The Spiritualist; it has also been advertised in many papers, and 
he told me personally that he will take any scientific man, or any 
number of them combined, and he will challenge them for £100, 
£500, or for a £1000 if one, or the body of them combined, can 
prove that Spiritualism is an imposition. I quote the following 
evidence from Signor Damiani's pamphlet on "Experiences of 
Spiritualism :" — 

Now for facts. Id the spring of 1865 I was induced by a friend to attend 
my first seance. This, I remember, took place at No. 13, Yictoria Place, 
Clifton, the medium being Mrs. Marshall. I had been, up to that moment, 
an utter sceptic to spiritual matters ; chokeful of positivism, I conceived man 
to be but a very acute monkey (simia gigantis stupenda, to be scientific), 
and recognised in life only a brief and somewhat unsatisfactory farce. I was, 
however, and, at the same time, open to conviction, — which, perhaps, was 
foolish in me. I found assembled at this seance some forty gentlemen, 
lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and journalists, besides a fair sprinkling of 
ladies. A medical man, well known in the neighbourhood of Bristol, Dr. 
Davy, of Norwood, filled the chair. At first, I refused to sit at the large 
table whereat the manifestations were to take place, for being then what I have 
now ceased to be, an unqualified believer in the candour and truthfulness of 
the newspaper press, I made up my mind ( certain journalistic comments being 
fresh in my recollection) to keep a sharp look-out upon the medium's 
movements, I was thus occupied ( intent aque ova tenebat ) when sounds, 
altogether unlike anything in my experience, were distinctly heard by me to 
proceed from the ceiling, some four yards as I should judge, above the medium. 
These sounds, travelling down the wall, along the floor, and up the claws and 
pillar of the large round table, came resounding in its very centre. This 
t to have convinced me at once that the medium's toes, at least, had 
nothing to do with the phenomenon ; but prejudiced incredulity is so strong 
a cuirass against the sword of truth, that I remained still watching the feet 



43 

of the medium under the table, as a cat does its prey. The chairman was 
the first to commence conversation with our ( supposed ) spiritual visitors. 
Shortly afterwards it came to my turn to talk with the spirits. " Who is 
there ?" " Sister," was rapped out in reply. " What sister ?" " Marietta.'' 
"Don't know you; that is not a family name;- — are you not mistaken?" 
No; I am your sister." This was too much: I left the table in disgust. 
Still, those knocks proceeding from the ceiling had puzzled me, and excited 
my curiosity ; therefore, when the company dispersed I remained behind, to 
discover, if I could, the modus operandi. I invited myself ( the assurance of 
sceptics is proverbial ) to take tea with Mrs Marshall and her hostess, after 
which I begged to have a private seance. Now I shall catch you, I thought. 
Sure enough the raps came again, distinct and sonorous as before. " Who 
are you?" "Marietta." " Again! why does not a sister whom I can 
remember come ?" " I will bring one ; " and the raps were now heard to 
recede, becoming faiut and fainter until lost in the distance. In a few 
seconds a double knock, like the trot of a horse was heard approaching, 
striking the ceiling, the floor, and lastly the table. " Who is there ?" 
"Your sister Antonietta." "That is a good guess," thought I. "Where 
did you pass away ? " " Chieti." " When ? " — thirty-four loud distinct raps 
succeeded. Strange — my sister so named had certainly died at Chieti just 
thirty-four years before. " How many brothers and sisters had you then ? 
Can you give me their names ? " Five names ( the real ones ) all correctly 
spelt in Italian were given. Numerous other tests produced equally 
remarkable results. I then felt I was in the presence of my sister. 

" If that is not 'in truth my sister," I thought, " then there exists in nature 
something more wondrous and mysterious even than the soul and its immor- 
tality." What had taken place at this, my first seance, produced snch an 
effect upon my mind that I determined to continue the investigation until I 
could come finally to a rational conclusion upon the subject. During the 
fortnight of Mrs. Marshall's stay in Clifton, I frequented the seances daily 
and on an average for four hours a day. Spirit after spirit I evoked, who 
one and all established their identity through the most searching tests. 
Having been thus uniformly successful, I felt somewhat perplexed about 
Marietta. Had I been mystified in her case, and in hers alone ? Finally, I 
wrote to my mother, then living in Sicily, inquiring whether, among the nine 
children she had borne and buried, there had been one named Marietta. By 
return of post, my brother, Joseph Damiani, architect, now residing at 
Palermo, wrote as follows : — " In reply to your inquiry, mother wishes me to 
tell you that on October 2nd, 1821, she gave birth, at the town of Messina, to 
a female child, who came into the world in so weakly a condition that the 
midwife, using her prerogative in such emergencies, gave her baptism. Six 
hours after birth the child died, when the midwife disclosed the fact of her 
having baptised the infant under the name of Maria ( the endearing diminu- 
tive of which is Marietta). The birth and death of this sister I have 
verified by reference to the family register." You must admit, gentlemen, 
that in the above case " unconscious cerebration " has not one leg to stand 
upon. 

On the following Monday I went to another seance at 15, 
Southampton Row ; Messrs. Heme and Williams, mediums, were 



44 

present The seance was similar in character to the first I 
recorded. You have read my convictions as to the first, my con- 
victions were the same of the last. There may have been spirit- 
power present, but my conviction was that there was some human 
power too, to make the seance of more effect. However, the 
voices were the same, John King and Kate being present ; the 
chairs, as usual, were flung on the table, with hats and sticks. 
An anti-macassar is thrown over my head ; next a chair is placed 
on the top of my head ; the table is convulsed, and rises and 
wriggles a foot from the ground in mid-air. The mediums 
declared that I was the cause of most of the manifestations, as 
they were all spent upon me. The great lounge was next taken 
up and tilted up upon my head, legs upwards, while the side 
rested on the medium's shoulder ; the table begins to wriggle and 
push so that it knocked me and the medium over our chairs, 
floundering on the floor, the lounge being on me. Of course you 
would have thought the very devil himself was present. A light 
is struck, I am relieved from my position, things are re-arranged, 
and we sit again. My schoolfellow from Chard, who was with me 
at my first sitting, was also present on this occasion. Lights are 
again turned out, the table begins again, the fender and whole of 
the fire irons are wrested out and flung upon the table ; the 
shovel falls into my lap. After a short continuance of this we 
broke up, and, as I said before, we considered it not profitable, 
and far from instructive. This is the last of my seances. 

I have given you what led me to the subject ; also the secondary 
evidence, and my own experience. After I have made some 
further remarks on the subject, I will give, as I proposed, my 
own conclusions and convictions respecting it. 

It matters not what a man's creed may be, it does not affect 
his being a spiritualist. He may be a Unitarian, or a Trini- 
tarian ; he may be an evil man, or a good man ; and the differences 
amongst spiritualists are as widely diffused — often resulting in 
antagonism to each other — as amongst any class of men you will 
find. Thus when men with such a variety of opinion sit for spirit 
communion, the class of spirits comes in contact with them which 
are most in sympathy with their own views. Thus, if good men 
sit with a prayerful desire for truth, they get spirits of a higher 
order to commune and instruct ; but the devil-spirits are as 
strong in the next world as in this, and they try to push good 
spirits away that they may commune and deceive also. If several 



45 

evil, drunk mediums were to sit, they would bring, as you may 
conclude, into contact with them a lot of devils, whose manifes- 
tations would be anything but desirable. Thus, you see, you need 
be very much on your guard in investigating this matter, and 
those that sit for investigation should not sit for mere curiosity, 
to giggle and laugh over it as a pastime; still, because many 
people trifle with spiritualism, it is no reason why a prayerful, 
earnest investigation should not be made in the matter, and by 
those whose object is nothing short of truth. Miss Houghton, in 
her last letter to me, says " I am glad you intend to investigate 
the matter for yourself, and I know you will find your happiness 
in doing so : you must, as far as possible, keep to a regular hour 
for your seance, and once a week is quite often enough. When 
once you get into communion with the loved ones who are gone 
before, they will give you the best advice as to your proceedings, 
for they will see and understand the conditions surrounding you." 
Now this good lady has studied the subject for twelve years, and 
there are thousands of christian families that hold their seances, 
but are unknown to the outer world simply because they do not 
want to be jeered and sneered at. These seances, if rightly and 
properly conducted, lead to one of the grandest and sublimest 
occupations in which we can engage when the toil of the week or 
day is over, and the whole thing is not to be put down as the 
work of the devil simply because a few indiscreet persons may 
practice it, or because some impostors have got hold of it ; any 
more than we should disclaim and protest against Christianity, or 
the Church of Christ, simply because of the black sheep that may 
be contaminating the flock. A gentleman said to me " since I 
have been a spiritualist I can realise the blessedness of the gospel 
more than I ever did before ; its teachings are better explained, 
and they become realities in my experience, I can sit in my own 
home, in my own family circle, and have hallowed converse with 
all my departed friends. What a consolation for the future ! We 
need not mourn their departure. All fear of death, and dread of 
the future flees away ; and what a comfort it is to know that 
wherever we are, they are watching us, and that whatever happens 
is for the best. All this to the sordid man — the man of the 
world — is a farce and has no meaning ; but to the Christ-like, 
God-fearing man, it is a reality of infinite worth. 

Now a few words about spiritual literature, there is much 
written that is very good and beautiful and also scriptural in its 



46 

teachings ; and spiritualism, as a truth freed from devilism and 
imposition, is the helper of the scriptures. There is one I take 
in " The Christian Spiritualist," in which nothing is allowed to 
appear wherein Christ has not got the pre-eminence. This was 
the understanding on which it was set on foot, and because there 
were other pamphlets, papers, and books written on spiritualism, 
that placed Christ and the bible where they ought not to be : not 
only so, the tone of some of the writings is anything but desirable. 
In fact, I should not like a child of mine to read them, and what 
is not wholesome for my child is not wholesome for me ; therefore, 
be careful what you read, as I have known of more than one 
taking up certain literature in my presence and when they read 
it, they have flung the paper aside and condemned it at once, and 
I am not surprised at it. 

When you sit at circles, do not sit with scrofulous or diseased 
persons, because, when the perfect battery is formed by a circle of 
hands, there is a general effusion from the whole circle ; the weak 
draw strength from the strong, and the strong becomes weakened. 
When you get manifestations, don't let the subject of spiritualism 
carry you away, and engross too much of your time, as it is a 
very absorbing science when you get into it. Instead of letting 
spiritualism take control over you, you must control spiritualism ; 
because if you neglect your daily calling through it, as many have 
done, and thus become unfit for business, you will find that the 
work left undone, spiritualism will not do for you, neither will it 
pay your debts. Some say " the Lord will provide," yes — if you 
use the power He has given you to provide for yourself. 

This subject is now engaging much of the attention of scientific 
men ; so much so, that the men we look to as the first authorities 
on scientific subjects are greatly divided upon the matter : one 
class considers it humbugged, but not from investigation ; another 
considers it the work of spirits, and another that it is psychic or 
mind-force, and not the work of the departed ; but the thorough 
investigators of the subject are perfectly satisfied that there is a 
force in nature — be it spirit-power or not — that is yet unknown 
to the scientific world, and that the force discovered does not 
come under any known or recognised law. Mr. Crookes, F.K.S., 
with Professor Varley and many others, have been tabooed by 
their colleagues in science as charlatans, illusionists, and madmen ; 
but this does not stop them in their truthful investigation of the 
matter. Mr. Crookes for his defence takes up the words of 



47 

Galvin. "I am," says Galvin, "attacked by two very opposite 
sects — the scientist and the know-nothings. Both laugh at me 
and call me the frog's dancing-master. Yet I know I have dis- 
covered one of the greatest forces in nature." And was not 
Galvin true? All our telegraphs are worked by Galvin's dis- 
covery, and the nations of the earth united by the telegraph. 
And so marvellous is this discovery that when the telegraph was 
finished at Falmouth, the Prince of Wales telegraphed to the 
ambassador in India, which message took four minutes and a half 
in transmission. The ambassador was asleep when the message 
came, and he sent back a message in less than five minutes to 
Falmouth apologising for so long a delay ; in a few minutes the 
message went from continent to continent and girdled the world. 
When Galileo discovered the satellites of Jupiter, a German 
astronomer said he had not seen them through Galileo-glass, and 
he did not see the use of them. This is just how men speak of 
spiritualism, they don't see the use of it, nevertheless it is as 
much a truth as the discovery of Galileo's satellites, or Galvin's 
electricity. The astronomers said with glorious shouts, "We 
shall have a Galileo's folly." Stephenson was called mad when he 
told the house he could make a steam-engine go thirty miles an 
hour ; but at the same time he knew it would go sixty. The 
motto of human research is " onward ! " We are not content 
with the discoveries of our fathers only, and they will only satisfy 
for their season ; but as we advance to meet the necessities and 
requirements of the times, and when men come in advance of 
their age, bringing hidden things to light, they are called mad. 
When sneered at by the know-nothings, they have nothing to 
bear. When a Newfoundland dog passes through the streets, 
every puppy dog runs out and barks at him, but the noble fellow 
takes no notice ; but when he meets with the scientists like him- 
self, then comes the contest, for truth. The discoveries of our 
age will not satisfy our posterity in the centuries to come ; and if 
those who lived an hundred years back could have known our 
present advance in science, they would have said the present age is 
labouring under some hallucination of mind, and gone stark mad. 
Those who generally oppose a matter are those who have 
never made an investigation of it ; therefore such persons are 
not competent to give an opinion. There is another class of 
opponents who never think, but yet with no small degree of self- 
importance they oppose everything that does not fit in with their 



48 

views ; they are like drags on the wheel of progress — they won't 
do themselves nor let others do. Like horses at a mill, they are 
always going the same round ; there is nothing to them beyond 
their own prescribed circle, and when an individual gets up out of 
the old ruts, and launches into a new field of truth, he is de- 
nounced as an enthusiast, a charlatan, and a madman. I know 
in my own experience I have a great many narrow-minded 
opponents, who, if they could, would stop my pen. They may 
harp as long as they like, they will never do it. Let them, if 
they have any moral courage about them, print a book and show 
the world wherein I am wrong, and by so doing show my readers 
a more excellent way. " Preposterous," says one, " a boot-maker 
writing a book on the seat of the soul — a question that has 
baffled the minds of men in all ages of the world !" I did write 
it ; yes, and I can defend it. And what if it had been written 
by a stone-breaker, a sweep, or a lord : what is the difference ? 
It would make not one iota difference to the truth. Let my 
opponents say what they like, I have some of the greatest mental 
philosophers on my side of the question. And if I have received 
the highest testimony for my mechanical skill, constant com- 
munications assure me that I have also secured it from other 
quarters for the productions of my pen, imperfect though they 
are. Spiritualism has been called modern witchcraft, and is 
considered to be the work of wizards and impostors ; others con- 
sider it delirium, optical delusion, softening of ihe brain, or the 
work of the devil. If this be all true, the greatest marvel to 
me is how so many great men can be deceived by it. Can it be 
possible that men whom we look to as authorities on other great 
questions, which we receive as truthful, are yet, according to the 
public view, liars on questions of not less vital importance. It 
cannot be. Who can say that these gentlemen whose names I 
am about to give are men that practise trickery to dupe the world ? 
Alfred R. Wallace, William Howitt, Professor De Morgan, Eobert 
Chambers, C. F. Varley, Dr. J. G-. Wilkinson, Professor Hare, 
Mr. Crookes, and a host of others may be added. Can any 
thinking man, with one spark of common sense, regard these men 
as illusionists, or can any for one moment think that, on the 
honour of gentlemen, they can be a party to dishonesty or 
trickery ? It cannot be. Not only so, take the great men of the 
past and their teachings. Swedenborg, Luther, Irving, Wesley, 
Isaac Watts, Bunyan, and a thousand others : were they all 



49 

illusionists? There are now twenty millions of spiritualists 
scattered over the world — are they all wizards, and parties to 
trickery ? You know it cannot be ; and who is the man that has 
a right to dogmatise to such a cloud of witnesses, when he is not 
sufficiently versed in the subject to give an opinion ? To show 
you the interest that some of the above-named gentlemen take in 
this subject, I have copied a few letters and extracts. 

Mr. C. F. Varley, F.R.S., wrote a letter to Professor Allen 
Thompson, of Glasgow, about the attack on spiritualism, made by 
the latter at the British Association. In answer to the reply 
from Professor Thompson, the following letter was sent : — 

"2, Great Winchester-st. Buildings, London, 19tli August, 1871. 

" Dear Sib, — Absence from town has prevented me replying earlier to 
your favour of the 11th inst. It was not my intention to be offensive to you 
in my letter, and I did not then, and do not now, consider that I was as hard 
upon you as you were upon us in your speech at Edinburgh. 

"The number of scientific men engaged in investigating phenomena called 
by some * psychic,' and by others ' spiritual,' is so limited that although you 
mention no names, the public could have no hesitation as to whom you 
referred. 

"It is a singular thing that when Mr. Crookes wrote a paper upon 
c Thallium,' a new metal, he was believed at once by such men as yourself. 
When last year I wrote a paper to the Royal Society upon experiments 
tending to explain that very unusual phenomenon, ' ball-lightning,' I was not 
doubted a moment j but when either Mr. Crookes or I come forward and 
state that we have seen, in the most unmistakeable manner, phenomena not 
more startling than those described, (but called ' psychic ') the scientific 
world seems to go mad— dubs us liars, charlatans, or madmen, and treats 
us in the same spirit as the Jews treated Jesus, or the Roman priests Galileo. 

" I wish you and all to understand that it is not a question of belief in the 
marvellous on our part, it is a case of actual knowledge that these phenomena 
do occur. 

"Time after time have I investigated them under conditions in which 
trickery was impossible, and even insanity insufficient to explain what had 
occurred. When six thinking men, all in full health, see the same thing 
again and again, it is impossible for them to be mistaken; and why you 
should gratuitously denounce what we state we have seen, and when one and 
all of us are men who are believed upon other topics, I cannot understand. 
It occurs to me, therefore, that he who is acting irrationally in this matter is 
neither Mr. Huggins, Crookes, nor myself. 

" Why, then, you, who have done nothing whatever personally to ascertain 
whether we are right or wrong, should go out of your way to ridicule us, I 
cannot conceive ; it is certainly inconsistent, at least, and you may well under- 
stand how irritated I felt on seeing you misuse (in my opinion at least) your 
presidential power, to deter others from investigating forces which we most 
emphatically declare do exist — a declaration made only after taking every 
possible precaution to avoid error on our own part. 



50 

" In conclusion, I wish to add, that I am as certain of tho existence of such 
psychic force and phenomena, as Messrs. Crookes and Huggins have described, 
as I am that messages can be and are sent from one side of the Atlantic to 
the other by means of telegraphic cables, and that I have had as conclusive 
proof of the one as of the other. 

" Yery truly yours, 
" Professor Allen Thompson, F.R.S., C. P. Yarley. 

Glasgow University." 

Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., editor of the Chemical News, is now 
investigating spiritualism, and he has published an article in the 
Quarterly Journal of Science, stating that its phenomena are real, 
and not delusion or imposture, though he does not know as yet 
whether they are produced by disembodied spirits. The following 
letter, which he wrote to Mr Varley, was published in the 
Spiritualist of July 15th, 1870 : — 

" 20, Mornington Road, London, N.W 
July 13th, 1870. 

" Dear Me. Yarley, — I was very pleased to receive your letter of the 9th 
inst % in which you discuss some points alluded to in my paper on 'Spiritualism 
viewed by the Light of Modern Science.' 

" You have been working at the subject for more years than I have months, 
and knowing, aa you do, the enormous difficulties in the way of accurate 
investigation — difficulties for the most part interposed by spiritualists them- 
selves — you will not be surprised to find that I only feel the ground firm 
under me for a very short distance along the road which you have travelled 
so far. 

" I was deeply interested in reading of your experiments, the more so as I 
have been working in a similar direction myself, but as yet with scarcely a 
tangible result. 

" You notice that I admit, freely and fully, the physical phenomena. Let 
this openness be a guarantee that I shall not hesitate for a moment in record- 
ing, with equal fearlessness for the consequences, whatever convictions my 
investigation leads me to — whether it points to a mere physical force, or 
makes me, as you predict, a convert to the spiritual hypothesis — but I must 
let my convictions come in my own way, and if I hold somewhat stubbornly 
to the laws of conservation of force and impenetrability of matter, it should 
not be considered as a crime on my part, but rather as a peculiarity in my 
scientific education. 

" I have already had many letters, both from spiritualists and from leading 
men of science, saying that they are glad that I have taken up the subject, and 
urging me to continue the investigation. In fact, I have been agreeably 
surprised to find encouragement from so many scientific men, as well as 
sympathy from the good friends I possess amongst the spiritualists. — Believe 
me, my dear sir, very truly yours, 

William Crookes.' ' 



51 

Mrs. De Morgan has written a book, entitled From Matter to 
Spirit (Longmans), where she gives many interesting particulars, 
the result of ten years' experience in spiritualism. Professor De 
Morgan, President of the Mathematical Society of London, in his 
preface to the book, says : — 

" I am perfectly convinced that I hare both seen and heard, in a manner 
which should make unbelief impossible, things called spiritual, which cannot 
be taken by a rational being to be capable of explanation by imposture, 
co-incidence, or mistake. So far I feel the ground firm under me." 

Dr. Hooker, in his opening address, as President of the British 
Association at Norwich in 1868, spoke very highly of the scientific 
attainments of Mr. Alfred E. Wallace, F.L.S. Mr. Wallace is an 
avowed spiritualist. Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, the inventor 
of the Hare's Galvanic Battery, once refused to witness spiritual 
phenomena, alleging that Faraday's "unconscious muscular 
action " theory explained all the facts. A friend wrote to him, 
detailing things he had seen which were inexplicable by that 
theory. Hare at once, like a sensible man, went to see for 
himself. The result was that he came into communication with 
some of his own departed relatives. He then made mechanical 
telegraphic machines, which were intelligently worked by spirits 
while the apparatus was screened from the sight of the medium, 
and he wrote a book recording all these facts. 

Many assert that spiritualism is the work of the devil. Un- 
questionably, communications come from good and bad spirits, but 
we are to test them, and if they speak not according to the truth 
we are not to believe them. Now, take a circle of christian 
spiritualists who live according to the truth ; they sit at a circle ; 
the controlling spirit requests that they begin their seance by 
prayer ; next to sing " Kock of Ages," next to read the Psalm, 
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Could the devil do 
this? You know the devil could not do it. Dr. Cumming says 
" I cannot believe that an evil spirit would speak the truth or 
attest the inspiration of the bible, for if a kingdom be divided 
against itself how can it stand." Others say that spiritualism is 
the consulting of familiar spirits and is nothing short of witch- 
craft, which the scriptures condemn, as in the case of the witch of 
Endor. I ask you, reader, now to test the truthfulness or falsity 
of this statement, and if you will only exercise common sense you 
will see that the above assertion is false. Solomon says "■ he that 
answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is a folly and a shame 



52 

unto him." Take two facts connected with Saul, and mark the 
difference. Saul's father has lost his asses. Saul goes to look for 
them. Saul's servant said that he could direct him to an honorable 
man — a man of God — who would tell him where his father's 
asses were. Mark what the scriptures say upon this point. (I 
Book of Samuel, ix chap., 9 verse.) Beforetime in Israel when 
a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, " come and let us go 
to the seer," for he that is now called a prophet, was beforetime 
called a seer. (A seer is what spiritualists in the present age call 
a medium.) Saul, then, on his way inquires for the house of 
Samuel, the seer, or medium. It is a wonder why those who say 
so much about the witch of Endor do not also say Saul is inquiring 
for the house of a fortune-teller. He wants to know where his 
father's asses are. And what is the difference between Saul's in- 
quiring of Samuel where his father's asses are, and others 
enquiring of the witch of Endor where they had lost their purses ? 
Directly I will explain the difference. Saul meets Samuel at the 
gate of his house, and not knowing him, said • - can you tell me 
where the house of the seer is?" "I am the seer," says Samuel, 
and before Saul had time to ask a question, Samuel said " come 
in and I will tell thee all that is in thine heart ; as for the asses 
lost three days ago, set not thy mind upon them for they are 
found." Is not this marvellous ? But mark, the Lord from the 
spirit-world communicated this to Samuel the day before. This 
fact is not more marvellous than some of the facts of modern 
spiritualism. Take the case I referred to at the beginning of this 
report, though the father was five hundred miles away, the 
children and sisters who were seers or mediums, could tell him on 
his return where he had been, and what he had been doing, and 
that the man whom he had trusted the day previous was going to 
cheat him out of forty pounds. Samuel is a medium under the 
Holy Spirit : thus all who spoke under this power, spoke truth 
infallibly, but the other mediums spoke under the control of a 
departed human spirit. The information required is given just 
the same, but being a human communication it is liable sometimes 
to error. But mark this, the Holy Spirit never tells a he nor 
makes a false communicatian. Thus you see all communications 
must be brought to the truth to be tested. Now the scriptures 
did not condemn Saul for inquiring about the asses. And before 
you can say the scriptures condemn spiritualism, you must first 
prove that the act of Saul in inquiring of the seer was wicked in 



53 

the sight of God. To the contrary, the scriptures encourage 
spiritualism, and it is stamped with the divine seal and sanction. 
Now comes the point. What is the difference between Saul's 
consulting Samuel, and his consulting the witch of Endor ? 
Simply this — Samuel was an honourable man, but the witch of 
Endor was an impostor : this difference I will yet make more 
plain. Samuel is analagous, then, to the true spiritualist 
medium. The witch of Endor analogous to the impostors who are 
the enemies to the truth of spiritualism. Now the witch did not 
believe in the God of Israel ; she was a heathen and believed in 
the idolatrous gods of the Moabites. Saul forsaken of God for 
his wickedness, (for the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams 
nor by urim, nor by prophets), goes to this fortune telling impos- 
tor, the witch of Endor, who belonged to a tribe that God would 
not allow His chosen people to associate with. Here you must 
see the three-fold sin ; he departs from God, he consults an 
impostor, and he holds intercourse with a tribe which is forbidden. 
Saul is disguised ; the witch is afraid of Saul, the king hears of it, 
she will be put to death with the rest of the fortune-tellers and 
wizards, and while she is talking she is frightened equally as 
much as Saul ; for she said she saw God or spirits come up out of 
the earth, and Samuel amongst them. You must here see the 
terrible sin Saul fell into, which so kindled God's anger. It is 
the consulting of wizards, fortune-tellers, and impostors, that the 
scriptures condemn, because they are soul deceivers, and they 
lead away from the truth and the true God. And who does not 
hate such soul deceivers, and, in justice to their moral sense, 
say — stamp them out. But mark the difference, the consulting 
of an honourable man was and is sanctioned by the word of God. 
Now there are thousands of honourable christian spiritualists who 
are mediums, who love their Saviour, and are as faithful to their 
God as any man can be. They are equally honourable with 
Samuel — one of the same brotherhood — joint heirs with the same 
Lord and Master, and over whom God and His angels have the 
same special care. Where, I ask, is the individual who on the 
honour of a man, can in justice to his God and conscience, call 
these honourable christian mediums impostors, or who can class 
them with the witch of Endor ? No sane man, surely. Now don't, 
I say, take up the witch of Endor and hurl her as a stone against 
the truth of spiritualism ; if you do, you will abuse your own 
common sense. Again, take the viii. chapter of Isaiah. The 



54 

Jews depart from God — the Assyrian army threatens them for 
their wickedness, God warns the chosen remnant of his children 
against — who — the honourable men? No, but against the 
infernal liars and impostors. " And when they shall say unto you, 
seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards that 
peep, etc." To the law and the testimony, if they speak not 
according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. 
Don't again pick up these impostors and class them with the truth 
of spiritualism, it has no parallelism with spiritualism ; as light 
and darkness, they are opposed to each other. Again, see Acts of 
the Apostles, ix. chap. — The apostles met a damsel, a fortune- 
teller ; a witch, a wizard, an impostor. I will give you names 
enough that you shall not misunderstand me. This damsel 
brought her master much gain by soothsaying or fortune-telling. 
With her mouth full of cant (who does not hate cant and mock 
faces ?) and hypocrisy, she says " these are the servants of the 
Most High God, who show us the way of salvation." Paul com- 
mands the evil spirit to come out of this fair-speeched whited 
sepulchre, and if you want to know what a whited sepulchre is, 
you should just look inside of one that is white-washed outside, 
and see the corruption and stench. Oh, horrid ! if I did not 
hate impostors as much as I hate the devil, I should never write 
so emphatically. Imposition, then, is what the scriptures are so 
indignant against, and is a thing accursed of God, but this is no 
argument to throw against the truth of spiritualism, which is not 
to be condemned because of its impostors, any more than the 
Christian church is to be condemned because some of its members 
cheat and swindle under a profession of religion. Those who 
attack spiritualism before inquiring into it, show a want of 
charity. It is a bad habit to preach charity and not to practice 
it. Archbishop Whateley says " any amount of detected mistake 
or imposture will no more go to disprove a well established fact, 
than the detecting a number of pieces of counterfeit coin will 
prove a genuine shilling or sovereign not to be genuine silver and 
gold." 

Many say, " What good is there in spiritualism ?" In answer, I 
say, like all the works of God it is a power for good. James 
Montgomery says, "Every pure truth science discovers must be 
a revelation of God in the universe, and a new confirmation of the 
authenticity of that word which reveals the things that are unseen 
and eternal." I was introduced to a gentleman in London who 



55 

was once an avowed infidel ; he pooh pooh'd at spiritualism, but 
was invited to attend several seances. He did so, and was 
convinced of the immortality of the soul, and is now a convert to 
the Christian faith. If this were all spiritualism had ever done, 
and it never did any more, it has in this case turned a sinner from 
the error of his ways, saved a soul from hell, and hid a multitude 
of sins. Thus there is in heaven more joy amongst the angels 
over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine that need no 
repentance. Do you believe that angel spirits rejoice over re- 
turning prodigals ? If you do not, you do not believe the bible. 
If you do believe it, you are a spiritualist. The fact of the 
matter is this — one half the world do not know what they believe, 
and simply because they have pinned their faith to somebody's 
coat, or have been led by the nose, like the bull is by a ring and 
staff, and they never think for themselves ; thus they swallow 
down all that is told them, and cannot give you a reason for the 
hope that is in them. Again, G. Damiani, the gentleman I met, 
and with whom I sat at a seance, was a sceptic, and in his 
own words, he says, " I conceived man to be but a very acute 
monkey." This gentleman is now a zealous convert to the truth, 
and he told me he feared not death, but rejoiced in the hope of a 
future. Spiritualism has done for these two gentlemen what the 
preaching of faithful ministers has failed to do ; it has been a 
stepping-stone over the stream of unbelief towards the truth, and 
had it not been for this stepping-stone, they would have been 
infidels still. William Howitt was converted from Unitarianism 
to the Christian faith by spiritualism. Professor Hare disavowed 
God and the immortality of the soul, and tried to prove the bible 
false by his writings. He became converted to the truth through 
spiritualism. He said at last, "I believe in revelation, and in the 
revelation of Jesus of Nazareth." Dr. Elliston denied the scrip- 
tures, and his works approached on atheism. He says, " I am 
thankful to Almighty God for the blessings He has wrought in my 
heart and mind through spiritualism :" with the bible in his hand, 
he said, " This now is my comfort, and hence is my hope." A 
thousand other cases of a similar character can be found if sought 
for. The ministers of the truth need not rail against spiritualism, 
for it has brought many to the footstool of Christ when no 
minister could have reached them. " God moves in a mysterious 
way." What does spiritualism want ? Not jealousy, but charity, 
and the co-operation of every lover of the truth. Robert Cham- 



56 

bers said, "What a rich thing is spiritualism for men of the 
world, if they would be only induced to take a candid view of it I 
If I did not believe that the spirits of those who have gone from 
earth could and do communicate with those who remain on earth, 
I could believe nothing." Bishop Hall says, " So surely as we 
see men, so sure we are that holy men have seen angels." Arch- 
bishop Tillotson says, " The angels are no more dead or idle than 
they were in Jacob's time or our Saviour's, and both good and 
bad spirits are each in the way about us." Adam Clarke says, 
"I believe there is a supernatural and spirit world, in which 
human spirits, both good and bad, live in a state of consciousness." 
Testimony is not wanting, but one half the human race will not 
believe truths admitted. Spiritualism is a truth for all. It 
verifies the assertions of great men ; it proves that the heaven of 
the future is not a place of glorified indolence, but a place of 
activity : that the spirit-world teems with busy life. The mighty 
train that fills the temple does not always sing hallelujah ; there 
is no purpose in singing hallelujah to all eternity, and God, you 
know, is a God of purpose. While the spirits of the departed 
labour at their heavenly calling, the spontaneous song of praise 
swells and ever overflows from the heart. The future life is the 
connecting link, or the working out the fruit, of this life, whether 
this life be good or bad. Oh, how ought we to live in the face of 
such stern realities ! Though eye hath not seen and ear hath not 
heard, etc., yet go a little farther, and you will find that God hath 
revealed these facts unto us by His Spirit. Dr. Cumming says, 
" Those who are gone before us recollect this world and those they 
have left behind them. It seems to me an inevitable conclusion 
that those who have gone before us must recollect those they have 
left behind. The life that now is shapes the life that is to be ; 
the impressions we receive in time we never can forget in the 
realiL of eternity. Separate our growth here from our recollec- 
tions there, and you separate the individual from himself. Were 
the past blotted out, for instance, from the memory of some one 
admitted into heaven, he could not believe himself to be the same 
person. As long as I am placed anywhere, so long I must 
recollect what I was, what I have gone through, what influences I 
have felt, what motives have inspired me, and what progress I 
have made. Separate in my memory my past from my present, 
and you annihilate me — you create a totally distinct and different 
being. We cannot conceive of being expunged in heaven, because 



57 

we cannot conceive the individual to be annihilated there." I 
must now soon come to the conclusions which form the fourth 
and last part of my report. I would make one more remark 
before doing so, with which shall follow an extract on the origin 
of spiritualism.* I am myself, after such evidence as I have 
given, a decided spiritualist ; and, notwithstanding the mystery 
and impositions practised, such a mass of evidence, apart from 
these, sifted in the way I have sifted it, is sufficient to convince 
any man. My judgement being convinced of the truth of 
spiritualism, I have nailed my colours to the mast, and shall 
defend them like a man. In my concluding remarks I shall give 
what the world demands — a reason for the hope that is in me. 
The tide of spiritualism is in its spring, and is swelling unusually 
high ; and those who try to stop it are like the old lady with her 
mop by the sea : at a great swelling of the tide, it began to flow 
into her house, and she went mopping away, thinking she was 
going to keep it back ; but the tide was too strong for her, she 
had to throw her mop down, take her knitting in her hands, and 
walk up stairs, and that is what I fear the opponents of 
spiritualism will have to do. 

Now I will come to the fourth part — my conclusions on this 
great and grand subject. And I say, if it is truth, which I 
believe it is, it will live ; if it is false, it will die. The bible is 
the only reliable test to try spiritualism or any other ism by : and 
the bible gives me every warrant to believe in the teachings of 
modern spiritualism. Some passages I quote. " The angels of 
the Lord are encamped about us." If this is the testimony of the 

* " Like all important discoveries, spiritualism had a very small beginning* 
As the steam engine was first suggested to the mind of Watt by the boiling of 
a kettle ; as the principle of the electric telegraph flashed on Galvani whilst 
looking at the involuntary movements of a frog ; so spiritualism had its origin 
in table-turning and taps, — "inexplicable dumb show and noise." Fo,,many 
years, towards the commencement of the present century, a mysterious "tick- 
tick " was heard, at intervals, in many transatlantic habitations, to the great 
bewilderment of the inmates. In or about the year of grace 1848, it occurred 
to a Miss Fox, of Hydesville, New York, to question these ticks — " interrogate 
phenomena " as you would say. " What is that ? " she asked one night. 
" Tick, tick," was the answer. " Does that mean ' Yes ' ? " " Tick, tick." 
" What is * No ' ? " "Tick." "Are you a spirit ? " "Tick, tick." "Not a 
mere accidental noise ? " " Tick." " Will you strike when I point to the 
letters of the alphabet ? " " Tick, tick." This was the first faint dawn of the 
new philosophy — a dawn which is now fast broadening into the full effulgence 
of noon." 



58 

Spirit which cannot lie — if this is the testimony of the living God 
who has sworn with an oath that, though the heavens shall wax 
old as a garment, and as a vesture will He change them, yet not 
one word of all that is written shall fail, then it is an infallible 
fact that I am at this moment writing this report in the camp of 
the Lord, and that the angels know what I am writing ; for they 
know my going out and coming in, and mark all my ways. 
Heaven then is at my very feet ! " How dreadful is this place, it 
is none other than the gate of heaven to my soul !" Around me 
ten thousand angels dwell. It is but a thin veil between ; death 
will soon lift it from our eyes, and the second scene in the great 
drama of our existence will burst upon us in all its vastness from 
the spirit-world, and will explain to us at once the mysteries of 
this, the first scene of our existence. I stand at this moment a 
denizen of the natural and spirit-world ; take from me my earthy 
covering, which will gravitate to the earth — earthy, and my soul 
will be free to live and enjoy a higher life, in a purer and more 
glorious atmosphere. And my spirit life, because higher in degree, 
will be a greater and more solid reality than my earth-life could 
possibly be. The spirit world is close around us ; it is not far 
away, neither is it beyond the highest star. I have to prove this, 
and to prove, also, that the departed can and do affect and 
influence us. When the angels met Jacob, he said, " this is God's 
host." Where did they come from — beyond the highest star ? 
Oh no ! They only lifted the curtain and made themselves visible. 
What only a curtain between ? No, only a curtain, for it is said 
that the angels came to help David, and it was a great host, like 
unto the host of the Lord. " Is there any number to His armies." 
says Job, "and upon whom doth His light arise?" "For they," 
says Moses, " shone forth from Mount Paran, and He came with 
ten thousand of His saints ? " This is only the partial lifting of the 
veil. " Thinkest thou," says our Lord, " that I cannot pray my 
Father and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions 
of angels ?" " And I beheld," says John, when his spirit-sight 
was opened, while he stood in Patmos ; what did he behold close 
at hand ? He beheld ; yes, and not only his spirit eyes were 
opened, but his spiritual ears. " I beheld and I heard the voice 
of many angels round about the throne, and the number of them 
was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands." 
Can you doubt for one moment that the angels of the Lord are 
encamped about you ; and very near to those that fear Him ? 



59 

When Paul had summed up the number of the faithful — those 
who had been known of the brethren but^had been gone before — 
" Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses." Did the thought ever strike you that all 
this host of worthies, including your own dear departed Mends, is 
about us — compassing us about — we in the centre ? It must be 
so if they circle around us. Oh, can it be true ? Yes, delightful 
truth, and have you never tried to realise it in its fulness and 
blessedness ? " For are they not all ministering spirits sent forth 
to minister to the heirs of salvation ? " Are they not all ? Who 
does " all " mean ? You see there is not a single departed, soul 
left out — all — all. But some of these ministers are spirits not 
only of mercy, but of vengeance. While some destroyed the 
mightiest cities of the earth, others scattered with a vengeance 
the armies that fought against the Lord. One angel guards, 
another guides, another administers comfort ; while others sing 
the glad tidings of great joy to the shepherds in Bethlehem ; and 
is it not ever so now ? If you believe God's word, you must 
believe it is so, for He maketh His angels spirits, and His 
ministers a flaming fire. And the angel smote Peter on the side, 
(can a spirit make his hand felt ?) and said, " arise quickly," and 
the chains fell off his hands, relieved from fetters and trouble. 
And the Lord sent His angel to shut the lion's mouth and 
Daniel is spared — saved from the jaws of death. " As I prayed," 
says Cornelius " behold a man stood before me in bright 
clothing" — yes, to direct a truth-seeking heart. "And the angel 
of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness"— 
yes, to comfort her as she mourns over her dying child. When 
Daniel was cast down, then said he, " there came again and 
touched me, one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthen- 
ed me." Gideon said " I have seen an angel of the Lord fece to 
face," and the Lord said unto him " peace be unto thee." And 
when the devil had left the Great Master after tempting Him 
forty days and nights, the angels came and ministered unto Him. 
The bible is fall of this blessed truth from beginning to end. 0, 
if we could only realise its power more than we do, how different 
we should be ! We know but very little of the reality. The bible 
is not a book merely to be read, but to be enjoyed ; it is 
something for the soul to live on, and is as necessary to its health 
as food is for the body ; but those who never try to realise the 
existence of the spirit-world, nor the truth, what starving souls 



60 

theirs must be — almost dead, and like the dry bones in the 
valley. " Can these dry bones live ?" What a change it must be 
when they do begin to live ! I may go on and fill a volume of 
such testimony as the above by searching the scriptures. All the 
comfort and support God gave to the above by and through His 
holy angels He has encouraged us to expect, and have we any 
ground for doubt with such a pyramid of testimony — evidence 
piled upon evidence ? 

We have all of us our guardian angels, and the angels even of 
little children do always behold the face of their Father in heaven. 
Can it be possible that these glorified beings walk side by side 
through the world and through life, and never make their presence 
felt ? Those who really believe in the communion of saints must 
have felt the power of these invisible ministers. When darkness 
and distress have brooded over you, has not consolation come in 
your darkest moments from some invisible source; the dark 
clouds have been scattered, and light and joy have burst upon 
your soul ? It has been even so ; but the man of the world, who 
is sordid and dead, he cannot understand this, neither can he 
realise it. Again I say, heaven is at our feet, and the apostle tells 
us that we are not come to Mount Sinai, that burnetii with fire, 
but unto the city of the living God — the heavenly Jerusalem — 
and to an innumerable company of angels. I have said enough 
to prove that the spirit-world is around us. The next question 
that arises is — is the spirit-world anything in resemblance like 
ours ? Heaven, the spirit-world, is not a previously vacant place 
filled with saints ; but I believe that, as the next fife is a counter- 
part to this, so the next world is a counterpart to this : but the 
next is a degree higher — a stage further on — there far more 
glorious and real, though close at hand. If I go on yonder hill, 
I behold the world flooded with light and splendour ; it is filled 
with God's goodness. My soul responds and exclaims, " Earth is 
full of heaven ! What is all that my eyes behold, but the outward 
manifestation of something more real within ? Within is the 
spiritual anti-type of all I see." Thus says the apostle — the 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, that it may throw 
off its natural garb as we throw off the natural body — that the 
death of the natural may be the birth and life of the spiritual 
world ; for we shall look for a new heaven and a new earth, in 
which dwelleth righteousness. And when we speak of cities with 
streets of gold — of never-fading flowers — of fields of living 



61 

green — there is something analogous to all this ; it is not an idle 
fancy. The Lord sketched through David's hand the design of 
the temple. Where did the design come from ? From God, and 
from the spirit-world. To Moses He said, " See thou make all 
things according to the pattern." Where did the pattern come 
from? Why, from the spirit-world. Yes, and everything and 
every creature in God's universe is a spirit-form, clothed with 
matter, and so cognizant to our natural senses in a natural world, 
but will be still more real to our spiritual senses in the next. 
The ideal of God is in everything ; this mighty spirit of all 
existence pervades the universe, and is therefore eternal ; as it 
comes from God and originates with Him, it can never cease to 
exist. Now another question comes — can our departed friends 
really come in contact with us — because those angels you referred 
were in the prophetic and apostolic age. Though we have no 
ground for doubting that the angels influence us, still I believe 
that our loved departed ones form part of the ministering angels, 
and that they influence us more than the angels of past ages, 
because they have an affinity to us : we still love them, though 
out of sight, and they love us. This affinity draws them close to 
us, by an invisible cord which death can never sever ; but as they 
have not the same natural bodies which we once came in contact 
with in their earth-life, and which were necessary to their 
existence in this natural world, therefore they cannot influence us 
nor come in contact with us under the same conditions. But 
they have spiritual bodies which do not exist under the natural 
laws of this world ; thus they must come in contact with us 
through some other medium, which we call supernatural because 
it cannot be explained by known or recognised laws. Now 
because the influence exerted by departed spirits cannot be felt 
and explained under natural conditions, the people say they do not 
believe it. Now is not such an objection unreasonable ? The 
spiritual is opposite to the natural, and we cannot get super- 
natural manifestations under natural conditions. A photographer 
takes your likeness — he draws it from his camera covered with a 
black cloth in a little case ; you say, "Let me see it." "I can't," 
he says, " I must go into my dark room to develope it." " Ah, 
you are going into the dark to practise trickery — the witch of 
Endor, of course — and if you don't show me my likeness before 
you go in there, I won't believe." " I can't do it," says the 
photographer. " And why ?" " Because the conditions are not 



62 

right. Thus the eternal laws will not permit me to do it in the 
light ; come into my little room with me, into which is let a little 
artificial light." You go in, he takes out his plate, which is 
covered with a white film ; you cannot see anything, but your 
likeness, nevertheless, is there. He pours on the chemicals, and 
you see your own likeness developed ; he places the plate before 
you, and says, " Do you believe it now?" So with spirit circles— 
a person says, " Unless you bring up a spirit into this room, 
I don't believe it." The conditions are not right, but if you form 
a circle you make a magnetic sphere ; the magnetic sphere in the 
natural world rests upon the magnetic sphere in the spirit-world, 
and connection between the natural and spirit worlds is at once 
established. Now then for demonstrative evidence. A lady whom 
I know, who never sat at a seance, was invited to do so. Being 
fearful, she sat with trembling : she had not sat long before she 
heard the voice of her departed father ; the fear then left her. 
"0," she exclaimed, "my father ! I know of a truth it is you ; I 
know you by your voice." In another instant her father appeared 
visible to all the circle, and they identified him as the man they 
knew in his lifetime. " As sure as my soul liveth, I am satisfied, 
father, that thou livest." Again, Mr. S. 0. Hall, F.S.A., who has 
published a private circular, from which I have extracted a few 
notes, has the following ( Mr Hall has often sat in circles with 
Mr. Crookes and other scientific gentlemen) : — 

"My sister, who had passed away, opposed spiritualism as 
anti-christian ; she never would enter a circle. I said to her, 
'■ God will permit you to visit me after you have left the earth ; I 
wish you to promise me to do so, if God gives you power, for my 
comfort, and as a helper on my way to Christ.' 'My dear brother, 
if it be for your good, and God permits it (and He may do so), I 
will be with you when He has called me from earth.' After her 
departure she appeared in my drawing room in the midst of a 
circle of mine ; she was visible to all but one. ' Is it my sister ? ' 
three blows were struck in the affirmative on the table ; she turned 
towards me and smiled : her identity was exact, I recognised every 
feature ; the hair was precisely as she wore it, plaited back, and 
the cap precisely as she wore it ; the Master of Lindsay, now Lord 
Lindsay, who sat next to me, called it a mutch — the cap of the old 
Scottish model ; she could at once have been recognised by any 
one who knew her in her life time. She remained before us for 
two minutes — long enough, if a photographer had been there, to 



63 

photograph her. I wrote this statement to Judge Edmonds, of 
America, on the testimony of those present. Miller, in New York, 
was charged with fraudulently pretending to make photographs of 
spirits long departed, the charge was refuted by evidence which 
the presiding magistrate deemed sufficient to justify his discharge." 
What a grand testimony this is for my book The Seat of the Soul, 
wherein I had endeavoured to prove, without a knowledge of 
spiritualism, — but not apart from the scriptures — that the soul 
was the man, and gave his identity to the body. What about the 
resurrection of the natural body, after such a testimony as this ? 
I believe in the resurrection of the scriptures — of the spiritual 
body, which is developed in the natural body, and raised out of it 
at natural death ; just as the new life of the grain rises out of its 
body and capsule. I believe that Christ is the resurrection and 
the life to the soul that is spiritually dead, but when you go back 
into the ages of the past and tell me that the dead carcases of our 
fathers that have returned to their natural elements, and passed 
into ten thousand other bodies, of birds, of beasts, of men, of 
flowers, and trees, rise, this I do not believe. It is this corruption 
that has heen dragged in by college lore, and has been messed up 
into a complete batter — earth and spirit — aud thus mystified the 
truth. Flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven : we 
sow not that body that shall be ; there is a natural body, and 
there is a spiritual body, and one is distinct from the other : the 
former is of the earth, and gravitates to the earth — earthy ; the 
latter is from heaven and it ascends to its like — the G-od that gave 
it. Out of Christ, a man is spiritually dead, but he that believeth 
on the Son of God, it is a resurrection to spiritual life, and 
natural death has no power over his soul. What has matter — his 
natural body— to do with it, any more than the matter of this 
desk I am writing on has to do with it ? Nothing whatever, 
for the body is but the clothing ; the soul clothes itself with matter 
as if with a garment. Thus John Locke puts it as against the 
Bishop of Winchester — " A sinner has acted in his body, say a 
hundred years ; he is raised at the last day, but with what body ? 
The same, your Lordship says, that he acted in on earth, because 
Paul says he must receive the things done in the body. What, 
therefore, must his body at the resurrection consist of? Must it 
consist of all particles of matter that have ever been vitally 
united to the soul ? If so, then it follows that many bodies must 
rise or be united to the soul, since in many bodies sin, during a 



64 

long life, has been committed (note, Locke here understanding that 
the body changes every seven years ) . Natural death seems a 
necessary means instituted by God so that when man has become 
matured here he may emerge out of this state to one still higher ; 
and if God knew by His foreknowledge the mighty changes the 
earth's crust had to go through before it became replete and 
fitted up for man's use during his developement here, He also 
knew from the foundation of the world that natural death would 
pass upon His creatures, and it is a part of His grand and 
glorious plan, though many attribute it to other causes ; and as 
we step beyond the tombs, and try to lift the veil, do we not find 
it so ? There is no getting to a more glorious state without 
natural death ; which is thus nothing short of birth or new life to 
the soul ; but the spiritual death of the scriptures is a different 
thing altogether, because natural death does not affect the man 
one iota, whether he be bad or good, and the man passes by 
natural death into the spirit world morally unchanged. When we 
realise the truth })f the scriptures, natural death has no gloom, it 
is birth, new life, to the soul, nothing to be sad about ; but 
spiritual death to the soul is not birth, this is what we mourn 
over. Natural death to those in Christ who have passed out of 
spiritual death, has a cheering aspect, and admits us to purer and 
more hallowed society in a higher and more perfect state of 
existence. The man who really believes in the bible does not look 
upon his departed friends as being out of existence, but as near 
us, though not visible under all circumstances. Does not this 
thought cheer us as we think of our departed loved ones near us ? 
As I follow the mortal remains of a loved one to yonder cemetery, 
to me it seems not the pathway of gloom and sorrow, though it 
seems hard to part, for we feel acutely the separation, though it 
be but for a season. Every step of the way seems to me the 
pathway to heaven, the spirit-world, and death and the grave are 
the open gate — the subterranean passages that open on the 
plains of heaven. As I look upon the coffin of that loved and 
departed one, all the affections and memories that united us rush 
at that moment upon my soul. Can this cold grave separate 
them ? Never ! We are still united ; the grave has no terror ; 
Christ has driven away by the power of His life and death all gloom 
and sadness. As I look again into the narrow house, I feel my 
friend is not there ; he is not gone down to the grave ; there lies 
only the garment he wore in his earth-life, and I love and reverence 



65 

the spot in memory of him that wore it ; just as I should a 
treasure or gift from a departed friend. I value my gift, as I do 
the cold corpse in the grave, not for its intrinsic worth, but in 
memory of him that wore it. My hopes are not to be buried with 
the sod, as turned in upon the untenanted house ; the inmate is 
gone and I look above the grave, and think of him as higher in 
existence, " absent from the body, present with the Lord," nay, 
it may be at my very side ; yes, and who is to say that he did not 
look on while I helped his left-off clothes into its resting place. 
Does not the scripture warrant all I have said, and if we felt its 
power we should not go to the grave in long black mummeries, 
which are too often a farce. I have often said that, when it 
pleases God to call me away, I wish for no black drapery to 
bandage up my followers' heads, and instead of mourning and 
desponding, (though the separation must be keenly felt) if they 
will only think of me as not dead, but near at hand, though not 
visible to the natural eye. If they can realise the power of this 
truth, it will gladden the heart and drive gloom away. When a 
friend leaves for a foreign land it seems hard to part, but there is 
hope of meeting again. There is equal hope with our departed 
friends, and when we meet and are united, the cup of joy overflows 
as it swells to the brim. Again to turn to our subject, apart from 
spiritualist seances, where is there a family that cannot give you 
some marvellous testimony for the truth of spiritualism. See the 
angels, how they have appeared to dying persons ; the veil that 
divides the spirit world on the dissolution of their natural bodies 
becomes so thin and attenuated, that the dying are perfectly con- 
scious of what they describe, and not delirious. And how many 
a mother has kept secret the testimony of her departed one, 
because she won't have her feelings hurt by scoffs and sneers ! 
What a flood of evidence we have to prove that friends dying a 
long way from us, after death are yet very near ! I have heard 
my mother (who lived at Forde Abbey many years ago) say that 
the housekeeper corresponded with a young man at sea. One 
night he came into her bedroom ; her door was locked ; he drew 
back the curtains of her bed ; (can spirit hands draw back material 
curtains ? Yes, and they can draw back iron bolts of prison doors) 
he looked in upon her ; she rose to speak, but he vanished. The 
news arrived a few weeks after that, stating that he was ship- 
wrecked at that very hour, dying with his thoughts on her he 
loved ; now freed from time, space, and a gravitating body, he 



66 

comes to her with a thought : there is an affinity between them, 
and a thought free from the body, will carry our spirits from one 
end of the universe to the other in a moment. The wall of her 
chamber could not resist the immortal spirit. Haye I not told 
you that a man's spiritual leg can go through a wall? " Stone walls 
do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." There is a story in 
the life of a young man, which appeared through the public press 
a short time ago ; this young man's sister, when he was a youth, 
was ill, and about to die ; a friend brought some grapes to moisten 
her lips at night. " I saw them and ate them. In the night my 
mother could not find them, she came into my room and said, 
t Johnny, did you eat sister's grapes ? ' She was grieved, and so 
was I. Some years after, when mother and sister had departed 
this life, I was shipwrecked, and while clinging to a spar for life, I 
heard my mother's voice echo over the waves as plainly as ever I 
heard it in my life — '■ Johnny, did you eat sister's grapes, Johnny, 
did you eat sister's grapes, Johnny, did you eat sister's grapes ?" 
If you want evidence I can give you a hundred such facts as the 
above, but these must suffice. 

I have shewn you that it is not necessary to be flesh and blood 
to be a reality ; this the testimony of all ages confirms. We do 
not at all times see these spiritual realities for want of proper 
conditions, but to the prophets the spirit-world and the natural 
world were visible at one and the same moment of time ; this must 
have been the case with our Lord, and Elisha, too, who, with a 
double portion of God's Spirit, could see what his servant could 
not see, for when his servant's eyes were opened he saw the moun- 
tain full of the hosts of the Lord, which Elisha saw before : and 
to sum up the testimony I have so far given, if Jacob could 
wrestle with an angel who was not flesh and blood — if angel hands 
can drive back material bolts — if a spirit-finger can make a 
material impression on the wall of Belshazzar's palace—all this 
can occur again when there is a special purpose to serve. We 
may look in hope that God will by His holy angels and by spirit- 
ualism, return to us again the powers of the church ; and it must 
be so if His kingdom must come, and His will be done on earth 
as in heaven. And has He not promised that that power which 
He gave to the seventies that were sent forth, He will give unto 
the rest of His children, and that if we have but faith as a grain 
of mustard seed, we shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, 
and it shall be cast into the midst of the sea. 



67 

Spiritualism elucidates to me many of the grand truths of 
scripture : it not only proves that the dead die not, and therefore 
the immortality of the soul, a spirit-world, and a future state, but 
it affords the grandest testimony for the authenticity of the 
scriptures, as coming from God, and shows to me clearly that the 
Word is the work of the Divine Spirit. I will give a few points 
in fact : — A writing-medium writes an intelligent communication 
under spirit control ; he knows not what his hand is writing, but 
on looking at it he finds it an intelligent communication — the 
result of an intelligent, acting agent. Now, reader, it must be 
madness to say that this is Dr. Richardson's nerve atmosphere 
doing this, or to say it is unconscious action of the brain ; 
impossible, it is an intelligent, conscious act on the part of some 
agent, and apart from the medium. When a person is uncon- 
scious he talks nonsense and not sense. It cannot be proved, in 
my opinion, either by Dr. Richardson's theory, or Professor ZerfFs 
animal magnetism, that these intelligent communications do not 
come from an independent source. Matter is not an intelligent 
agent, and mind stands behind all matter. Take analogous facts 
from the scriptures. Now it is said that the scriptures were 
written by holy men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
These holy men, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and disciples 
of the scriptures, were mediums ; and just as a medium in our 
day would write under the control of a departed human spirit, so 
these men of God wrote under the control of the Holy Spirit. 
Now these men, it is my conviction, were not mentally conscious 
of what they were writing in every instance : their hands were 
instruments controlled by the Holy Spirit, just as David's was 
when he designed and drew the plan of the Temple of Solomon — 
the design came through his hand, but that design was a mental 
act not on the part of David, but on the part of another agent — 
God ; and David, so to speak, was a dummy (if I may employ the 
term) through which the Spirit acted. The whole bible is the 
entire work of God's Spirit. The parts were written several 
thousand years apart from each other, and by a large number of 
different writers. Now every part in this book harmonises, 
making one grand whole ; clearly showing that it is the work of 
one mind and spirit. If it had not been so, being written by so 
many different men, with differently constituted minds, the book 
would have been full of human figments and contradictions : this 
clearly shows that the bible is the work of God, and not the work 



of man. What a testimony, and what an authority for the truth 
of the bible ! Oh, how such testimony nerves a man ! This 
brings to my mind another analogous fact : — A medium under the 
control of a departed human spirit writes and speaks Greek and 
Latin languages, of which he has no knowledge when in his 
normal state. Now, supposing this was the nerve atmosphere of 
the medium, where did this nerve atmosphere get its Greek from ? 
Certainly not from the medium, or any of the sitters, for not 
a single sitter knows anything but English. If it is unconscious 
action of the brain, where did the brain get its Greek from ? 
Certainly not from the medium, as his brain never contained a 
sentence of Greek. If it is animal magnetism or electricity, 
when and where and how long has animal magnetism been an 
intelligent agent ? From this analysis you will clearly see that 
the Greek the medium is speaking must come through him from 
an intelligent agent apart from himself. Now on the Day of 
Pentecost the twelve Apostles, uneducated in college lore, stood 
up in the midst of the people, and spoke to every foreigner in his 
own native tongue, and it is said there were then gathered at 
Jerusalem foreigners out of every nation under heaven. These 
twelve men, with differently constituted minds, spoke in twelve 
different languages the same truth, thus proving that they were 
not mentally conscious of what languages they were speaking, and 
that the entire discourse was the work of one mind, and an 
intelligent spirit — the Holy Spirit — apart from them. Had this 
been the work of the apostles' minds, without this guidance, their 
speeches would have been human and full of contradictions. Now 
to speak in all these languages must be an intelligent act. It 
would be very difficult for our professors to show that an act like 
this was produced by a mere atmosphere, or animal magnetism, 
or any other ism. Here, then, is another grand testimony for the 
truth of God's word. Spiritualism is fall of testimony for the 
truth. There is a striking analogy between the apostles and 
prophets under spirit control and the medium in our own day : 
but mark the difference. God's Spirit teaches but one truth, 
which is infallible ; but human spirits that control mediums are 
not infallible, therefore their communications are often contra- 
dictory. Thus you see that though spiritualism can help us, yet 
the bible is the true and solid basis of belief ; thus we look to the 
testimony of God's book, and by that testimony we try the 
communications, to see whether they come from lying or from 



69 

truthful spirits. The bible corroborates all that the truth of 
spiritualism asserts. The scriptures say that the angels are about 
us ; spiritualism says the same : the scriptures say the soul is 
immortal ; spiritualism says the same : the scriptures teach that 
man is responsible to his God ; spiritualism says the same : the 
scripture says that what a man sows he reaps ; spiritualism says 
the same : the scriptures teach the communion of saints ; spiritu- 
alists teach the same : the scriptures say there is a natural body 
and a spiritual body ; spiritualism says the same : the scriptures 
say that God is a God of justice, love, and mercy ; spiritualism 
says the same : the scripture teaches that the spirit or soul is a 
substantial reality, apart from flesh and blood ; spiritualism says 
the same : the scriptures say that Christ — after the change that 
took place in his body, so that he could come through the walls of 
a shut room and vanish suddenly out of sight — was not.' a 
spectre but a solid reality. Spiritualism says \ that departed 
spirits come through the walls of locked rooms ; shake hands 
and those- spirit hands are felt to be solid realities, and 
when recognised they vanish out of sight. The scripture says 
that Christ is God in the flesh ; spiritualism says the same. 
After all this, please show me how and in what way spiritualism 
opposes the bible : you must admit she is the handmaid of the 
truth. Spiritualism is the work of God ; the bible the word of 
God : they must agree : if there is any contradiction, it is on our 
part, and because we are imperfect : these two, which God hath 
joined together, no man, with all his philosophy, can rend 
asunder. 

As so much has been said about good spirits, it will be well 
before concluding to say a little about bad spirits. Wesley and 
many great divines assert that we are in our daily calling sur- 
rounded by good and bad spirits. Luther said " If we could see 
how many angels one devil makes work for, we should despair." 
He was so tried one time by an evil spirit, that he said he 
flung his inkstand at him and smashed it against the wall. 
" When I would do good," says Paul " evil is present with me." 
There are evil spirits that never belonged to this earth, but came 
from another sphere ; and there are good angels, also, who never 
lived in this earth, as, when a question is put to them, they will 
sometimes say it is a mundane question, we can't answer it, we 
are not of the departed of earth. And so it is with the devils. 
And there was war in heaven, and Michael and his angels fought 



70 

against the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And 
the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their habitation, 
he hath cast out of heaven. Job says " When the sons of God 
came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came 
amongst them." The angel of the Lord in the spirit-world 
disputed face to face with the devil about the body of Moses. Do 
not good and bad spirits dispute in the next world as good and 
bad men in this ? Now these bad spirits influence wicked mediums. 
For they are, says the Eevelation, the spirits of devils working 
miracles ; the communications that come from these evil spirits 
through bad mediums are most blasphemous ; but understand this, 
these communications never come through a God-fearing man. 
Devils believe in the immortality of the soul and a future state, 
to them it is a reality ; and many spiritualists believe in the 
immortality of the soul and a future state, but they deny the bible, 
and deny Christ, and, as like loves like, these evil spirits come in 
contact with evil men, and they preach the doctrine of devils, and 
not of Christ. Thus writes William Howitt of these mediums : — 
'• By the extravagance of their doctrine, and the wild immorality 
of their social innovations, they have struck a deadly blow at their 
own glorious dispensation ; thus they have caused sober and 
reflecting people to start back and stand aloof." Thus you see 
the battle of life is not with flesh and blood, but with prin- 
cipalities and the powers of darkness ; in other words, the battle 
is against the invisible devils that surround us. Now you can see 
what the gospel armour is for ; for what is the use of a breast- 
plate, helmet, and sword, if not to defend yourself from enemies ? 
The fight, then, cannot be in our own strength ; flesh and blood 
are not equal to it, but it is in God's strength we fight : He has 
promised the assistance of His angels to strengthen us. " Resist 
the devil and he shall flee from you, for mightier is He that is for 
you than all the powers of hell against you." This earth is a place 
of trial ; see how the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles were 
tried ; and the devil was hard by their sides watching every 
unguarded moment, and when that moment came, the evil spirit 
influenced them, and they committed dreadful sins. The Lord 
said unto Simon, "Satan desires to have thee, to sift thee as 
wheat." We are only safe while we trust in God. " Hold Thou 
me up, and I shall be safe." 

In conclusion, I would say — as surely as Paul was caught up 
into the third heavens and saw unspeakable things — and as surely as 



Jehoram received a written communication from Elijah four years 
after he had been taken from earth, so surely we can communicate 
with our departed friends under the necessary conditions ; and 
though spiritualism has many Simon Magus's who practice 
imposition and trickery, because they cannot possess the power of 
mediumship, still this does not affect the truth of spiritualism, 
which, in my conviction, is a power for good. Spiritualism is 
just budding when needed, and is running parallel with the 
scepticism and infidelity of the age ; and leaving all trickery and 
devilism out of the question, there is a mighty under-current at 
work, slowly and silently, and by and bye we may expect a mighty 
swelling and outbursting of the flood, which will bear the truth on 
its bosom. My report of what I heard, saw, and know on this 
question is drawing to its close ; I have not withheld anything 
that would be either for or against spiritualism, and I have done 
so that you may have both sides of the picture, and from it draw 
your own conclusions. Had I not gone into the subject, I could 
not have handled it in the way I have. I trust these pages have 
proved to you instructive and profitable, and if they lead you to 
inquire more about your true self, and the future that inevitably 
awaits you, the report will not be useless in its mission. One 
fact must have struck you — the importance of this life, and the 
relation in which it must stand to the next ; and though some 
may think they are too good for hell and too bad for heaven, and 
thus look for an intermediate state, or think God is going to 
perform a miracle in their case, it is all a mistake ; the spirit- 
world picks a man up where this world leaves him, and the 
scriptures, in this passage — "what a man sows, he reaps " — has 
found a place for him. It is how a man lives : and this brings 
to my mind a stern fact in my experience : I wish to withhold 
nothing that may be either for or against my book, The Seat of 
the Soul. There are a few exceptional cases where the conscious- 
ness of the spiritual limb is not felt so acutely, and this is with 
those who have no intellectual capacity ; they are mere animals, 
so to speak, and the more animal they become, the less conscious 
they are of their spiritual existence. The soul that is animal — 
the soul that is without knowledge, is not good. Oh what a 
condition to live in 1 Yes, and how fearful to die in ! Is this not a 
picture of teeming millions of our race ? What a world the spirit- 
world must be, since these teeming millions after death are 
morally unchanged. The diversity of character is equally vast in 



72 

the spirit-world as in this. The man who feels the power of the 
truth, feels his own blackness to be bad enough, and the higher 
and nearer he approaches to his Maker, the more he feels his own 
imperfections. It is only in God's light we see our true selves, 
and it is only as we look away from self to Him who is the 
Resurrection and the Life that this human nature (not the physical 
nature ) becomes changed ; and light, life, and peace breaks in 
upon the dead soul. If such is the experience of the believer, 
how must it be with those of whom we have spoken, who are 
dead to the realisation of this. It is not what a man believes, 
then, but how he lives ; but do not mis-understand me, he that 
really believes on Christ tries to act out the Christ life. This 
belief is a power that transforms the soul. But he that believes 
and acts contrary, in everything that is dishonest, his belief hath 
no power to transform the earth-life, but it is the belief of devils ; 
for they believed and trembled. Again, do not think that I 
intimate there is no hope for the worst of sinners ; there is hope : 
a son who is wicked and wild pains his father's heart ; the father 
troubles not about the obedient children, but grieves over his 
wayward son. The son returns and acknowledges his sin, and is 
sorry from his heart for his disobedience and wickedness. Does 
the father chastise him ? No, but his heart is filled with joy, the 
tear of pity trickles down his cheek, and he embraces his child, 
and admits him to his favour. Now God is no less fatherly ; but 
remember, he that comes in at the eleventh hour though he may 
be a door-keeper in the house of his God, loses by his earth-life a 
certain amount of glory ; while he who has turned many from 
wickedness to righteousness, shall shine in heaven as the stars for 
ever and ever. 

Now, reader, I must bid you farewell for the present. If I 
have said anything which in your view is contrary to the truth, 
do not receive it. In Mr. Dickens's words, " receive no man's 
construction of the letter, but prove all things, and hold fast 
that which is good." Give to me the same liberty of thinking 
as I grant to you, and do not say of christian spiritualists that 
they are like the Jews and Greeks, looking after a sign, and 
some new thing instead of studying the scriptures. This 
was implied of the unbelievers outside the pale of the Christian 
Church, and is no argument to hurl against spiritualists who 
are already on the Lord's side, as they are not" looking out- 
side the scriptures for something new, but are perfectly 



73 

satisfied with the truth of God's word and feel it nothing short of 
the bread of life to their souls. When men with minds full of 
prejudice use weapons to oppose, let them be fair and lawful, and 
let them remember that however opposed anything may be to 
their view, their view stands as nothing against the truth, for 
that which was impossible yesterday is probable to-day, and 
to-morrow it is an established fact. Such is the onward march 
of science — the handmaid and not the enemy of divine truth. 
" Man, know thyself," are words the best of us know but little. 
Sir Isaac Newton, while he compared all his knowledge to but 
one pebble or shell upon the beach, saw the ocean of truth 
stretched out before him, which no human mind had yet reached. 
A German philosopher, after a life of human research, compared 
himself to a child who held up its hand to catch a sunbeam, and 
grasping, as he thought, the sunbeam in his hand, said, " I have 
got it," but on opening his hand he found it gone : the best of us 
know but little when we compare the known to the unknown. 
" There are yet paths untrodden which no fowl knoweth, and 
which the vulture's eye hath not seen." " God has caused the 
foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak 
things to confound the mighty." We have yet much to unlearn, 
and far more to learn. " There are more things in heaven and 
earth than^we think and dream of in our Philosophy. " 




T. Young, Printer, Fore Street, Chard. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 






